A thoughtful, if occasionally strident, account of a neglected aspect of Nixon’s presidency.
A panoramic historical study of President Richard Nixon’s handling of Hispanic affairs, as told by a former White House insider.
In his debut, Ramirez, offers a historical tour de force. Part scholarly study, part ringing celebration of Hispanic-American success, the work is also an intensely personal account of his own evolution as a man juggling dual Mexican and American identities. The analytical meat of the book defends Nixon as the president who effected the most profound changes for the Hispanic community, which began to swell in the United States following World War II. Ramirez focuses on Nixon’s impact on the Mexican population, a “sleeping giant” that quickly catapulted into a major American demographic. “Nixon was the man who grew up with us Mexicans. He knew us, cared about us, and included us,” Ramirez writes. “Let history show that he was the only president who really and truly gave a damn for the Mexicans.” Discussing largely forgotten political operatives such as Robert Finch, Counselor to the President, and Martin Castillo, first Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Opportunities for Spanish Speaking People, the author persuasively makes a case that Nixon, rather than his predecessors Kennedy and Johnson, was truly devoted to the precarious plight of Hispanic-Americans. Sidestepping some of Nixon’s infamous failings, the analysis sometimes borders on hagiographic. Also, it can be a bit self-referential, detailing maybe too meticulously the author’s privileged vantage point (a lengthy section of the book is entitled “Why I am the One Who Can Tell the Story”). Ramirez bluntly informs readers that the book is “a sine qua non for understanding the rise of the Chicanos and Nixon’s part in it,” and his arguments are well-articulated and rigorously sourced, including extensive appendices of pertinent documents.
A thoughtful, if occasionally strident, account of a neglected aspect of Nixon’s presidency.Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615821931
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Henry M. Ramirez
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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