An intriguing, eye-opening spiritual biography.
Even history’s most famous conqueror had a soft side.
An acclaimed expert on Mongolia, Weatherford (The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, 2010, etc.) introduces readers to a Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) not discussed in most history books. Though he was unquestionably a ruthless and violent conqueror, the author wants readers to see his subject as a thoughtful leader marked by extraordinary forethought and wisdom, paired with a religious personality. Among Weatherford’s most startling revelations is that, centuries before John Locke and similar thinkers, Genghis Khan believed in and promoted religious tolerance within his great empire. Early in the book, the author does an admirable job explaining the physically harsh and brutal life into which Temujin—the name of the future Khan—was born and raised. Readers may grow to feel empathy for the young and unlikely future ruler, until fratricide and other acts of violence quickly taint his image. Founding the nation of Mongolia in 1206 with 1 million followers, Genghis Khan showed early wisdom in deciding to bring the written word to his empire, and he set about having scribes put the Mongolian spoken language into writing. Military success led to vastly increased landholding, and his empire grew. Weatherford details his conquest of China and then of Muslim lands to the west. Throughout, Genghis Khan considered himself “the whip of heaven,” chosen to bring order and justice to a troubled world. This included a solemn religious duty: “As heaven’s representative on earth, he felt it was his duty to examine the religions of the people he had conquered to determine what they were doing incorrectly and to correct their errors.” As he aged, however, Genghis Khan transformed from judge to student, as he spent more time learning about the religions of his conquered lands and incorporating their finest points into his administration and lawmaking.
An intriguing, eye-opening spiritual biography.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2115-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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