Who needs another one-volume history of the Civil War? When it comes from Stokesbury, a master of the form (A Short History of the American Revolution, 1991, etc.), the result is well worth adding to the bulging shelf of Civil War histories. Although Stokesbury's (History/Acadia Univ., Canada) primary focus is military (and his battle descriptions are nothing less than thrilling in their sweep and momentum), he is also adept at integrating socioeconomic and political factors into his narratives, and this volume is no exception. Given the complexity of the period leading up to the conflict, Stokesbury successfully digests and synthesizes a mountain of material covering a turmoil- filled half-century in only a few thoughtful pages. He quickly joins the school of Civil War historians who see slavery as the heart of the conflict (citing Lincoln himself as his authority for that judgment) and skillfully recounts the history of the ``peculiar institution'' in America. His retelling of the Nullification Crisis and subsequent attempts to sunder the Union have an eerie ring in these days of ``the county movement'' and self-anointed militias. As for his narration of the war itself, it is highly competent and compellingly written. If at times it lacks the passion and fire of a McPherson, Catton, or Foote, the book has a nice balance of completeness and conciseness to compensate. Stokesbury is particularly good at making the reader understand why the Civil Waras the first railroad war, the first great mass war, the first ``total'' waris the first truly modern war in history, a terrible visitation on a continent that has been spared mass bloodshed since then. An excellent introduction to one of the most eventful stories in American history.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-11523-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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