A wide-ranging biography of perennial also-ran Adlai Stevenson which demonstrates that character is destiny. Stevenson has been the subject of several recent books, but Baker (History/ Goucher Coll.; Mary Todd Lincoln, 1987) affords his life a depth, historical and personal, that few other writers have acknowledged. She traces Stevenson's family history at length to Scotland, then Ulster, the adopted home of many Presbyterian Scots who would later fuel America's expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The Stevensons were actors in that expansion, moving from Pennsylvania across into Kentucky after Daniel Boone opened that territory, later settling in the fertile bottomlands of Illinois, where they would become farmers, solid citizens, and important politicians (Stevenson's grandfather was Grover Cleveland's second-term vice president). Baker suggests that with this pedigree Stevenson could have become nothing but a leader. Long portrayed as a misunderstood saint of American politics, Stevenson turns out in Baker's account to have had the full range of human frailties. He conducted simultaneous affairs with two women—a journalist and a State Department assistant secretary; both evidently believed that Stevenson would divorce his long-suffering wife to marry them. As governor of Illinois, he illegally paid bonuses to favorite political aides from a private fund. ``Blinkered by self-righteousness,'' Baker writes, ``Stevenson overlooked any possibility of influence peddling on him.'' For all that, he emerges as an unjustly abused fellow, smeared by his association with Alger Hiss, derided as an ``egghead'' by Dwight Eisenhower, and calumniated by such right-wing propagandists as Walter Winchell, who, believing Herbert Hoover's assertion that Stevenson was homosexual, proclaimed, ``A vote for Adlai Stevenson is a vote for [transsexual] Christine Jorgensen and a woman in the White House.'' Baker writes with sympathy and considerable vigor, and this fine biography takes a refreshingly long view of an important figure in recent political history.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03874-2
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
Drawing on the harrowing year he spent with Ty Cobb as ghostwriter of his autobiography, Stump pens an astounding portrait that leaves little doubt the Hall of Famer was ``psychotic throughout his baseball career.'' When they ``collaborated'' on My Life in Baseball in 1960, the Georgia Peach was a bitter, unreasonable, gun-toting, 73-year-old cancer-ridden drunk. Cobb's spectacular career (190528) was marked by ugliness and violence from the beginning. Just days before Cobb was called up to the big leagues, his father was shotgunned to death by his mother, apparently while trying to climb or spy through their bedroom window. She was acquitted of manslaughter, but rumors plagued her and her famous son the rest of their lives. As an 18-year-old rookie, Cobb faced such unbearable hazing from his Detroit Tigers teammates that he bought a gun to protect himself. He suffered a nervous breakdown in his second year and spent part of the season in a sanitarium. When he returned, his welcome was a hotel lobby brawl with his hated teammates that left a couple of them hospitalized—but Cobb led the team in hitting. The controversies, fights, and incidents so vividly recounted by Stump make today's ``troubled'' athletes look like choirboys. Cobb once beat up a black groundskeeper—and his wife—for touching him. Umpires, managers, teammates, opposing players, his wife and children—all who ``increased his tension''—were subject to fierce attack. But his baseball talent was such that many consider him the greatest ever to play the game. His records for hits and stolen bases stood until Pete Rose and Rickey Henderson, respectively, broke them. He won 12 batting titles. His most remarkable—and untouchable—feats were hitting over .300 for 23 consecutive seasons and his .367 lifetime batting average. (A movie about Cobb will be released this fall.) Stump's wonderfully descriptive writing, yeoman historical research, and personal knowledge of Cobb make this an extraordinary achievement in sports biography. (24 photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-945575-64-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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"When others at Harvard spoke of their experiences at Hagia Sophia and the Prado, I reminisced about the wondrous ants I examined in Geneva and Paris,'' remarks the eminent Harvard entomologist in his stylish autobiography. Now 66, Wilson (Biophilia, 1984, etc.) recounts the life of a born observer and synthesizer. As a boy he roamed the woods and creeks of Florida and Alabama collecting bugs; he went on to become the world's leading authority on ants and insect societies. He also pioneered the study of chemical communication among insects and, of course, effected the marriage of population biology and evolutionary biology that led to the still controversial field of sociobiology. Wilson deals fairly with the debate, as well as with the earlier "molecular wars" that pitted Wilson and his fellow naturalists against Jim Watson and the new breed of molecular biologists. He provides telling sketches of the principals, confesses to some naïveté on his own part, but generally adopts a more-in-sorrow-than-anger stance. These chapters, along with his descriptions of mentors and collaborators over the years, are valuable contributions to the sociology of the rapidly changing science of biology. Wilson still thinks the time will come for a theory of human behavior based on the co-evolution of genes and culture. He also argues for his "biophilia" hypothesis—the idea that human beings have an inborn affinity for other forms of life. Not surprisingly, he has become an ardent spokesman for biodiversity, deploring the daily loss of species and natural terrain. Next time around, he says, he'll opt for being a microbial ecologist: "Ten billion bacteria live in a gram of ordinary soil...they represent thousands of species, almost none of which are known to science." To which the reader can only respond: Go to it, and tell us all about in another grand book. (Natural Science Book Club dual main selection; first printing of 40,000)
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NonePub Date: Oct. 17, 1994
ISBN: 1-55963-288-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Island Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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