An engrossing history that sheds light on our own fractious times.
A revealing biography of a complex, contradictory political leader.
For more than three decades, James Claude Wright Jr. (1922-2015) represented Fort Worth, Texas, in Congress, including stints as majority leader and, finally, in the position he coveted: speaker of the House. A liberal Democrat from a conservative district, he served under eight presidents, earning a reputation as an astute pragmatist “able to bridge divides.” Flippen (History/Southeastern Oklahoma State Univ.; Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right, 2011, etc.) draws on Wright’s memoirs, diaries, and papers; copious library and newspaper archives; and interviews (including conversations with Wright) to offer a definitive, richly detailed biography. Besides creating an indelible portrait of Wright, the author offers a vivid, eye-opening history of profound change in American politics since the 1950s, when Wright was elected to Congress: “consensus politics giving way to harsher partisan discord, and compromise turning into personal invective.” By the time Wright was forced to resign in 1989, “partisanship and scandal, driven in part by more efficient gerrymandering and the proliferation of new media, now defined government.” No leader is without enemies—and Wright, Flippen reveals, made some poor personal choices—but the successful campaign to oust him reflected a pervasive, malignant “devolution of political civility” incited by a vicious Newt Gingrich. In addition, his style of leadership was undermining his power, with many Democrats resenting “his forceful hand” and his tendency to dictate rather than consult. Wright’s liberal views were circumscribed by his conservative roots: progressive on many issues—the environment, education, and civil rights—he nevertheless supported the Vietnam War; opposed abortion and forced school integration; and upheld citizens’ right to bear arms. Flippen examines his relationships with vastly different presidents, most of whom—Ronald Reagan excepted—he found ways to support. He even found common ground with Richard Nixon, refusing for too long to believe the “litany of dirty tricks and corruption” accusations that led to the president’s resignation.
An engrossing history that sheds light on our own fractious times.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4773-1514-9
Page Count: 540
Publisher: Univ. of Texas
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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