Lacouture follows up his De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890-1944 (1990) with another admiring volume, tracing how the triumphant leader of the Free French consolidated his position as the colossus bestriding his country's political institutions. The author sees in de Gaulle a ``grand nomad'' who sometimes had to forsake power and ``take to the wilderness for his true stature and the sheer gap left by his absence to be perceived.'' Correctly predicting the fatal legislative wrangling and executive impotence of the new French constitution, the general resigned as head of the provisional government in 1946, then waited 12 years before the Algerian crisis forced the nation to turn to him, at age 67, as president of the Fifth Republic. Gaullist diplomacy gets the lion's share of coverage here, including the confrontation with the military over Algeria, the attempt to assert European independence from the superpowers while opposing Marxism, the shift toward Israel's Arab foes, and the May 1968 student rebellion that hastened the end of the general's career. Unlike many Anglo-Saxon biographers, Lacouture ascribes de Gaulle's prickly postwar relations with former American and British allies less to his arrogance than to his refusal to diminish French sovereignty. De Gaulle's policies are explained, but not his mastery of men, and criticism is limited (notably, of the general's manipulating the threat of an army coup d'etat to return to power, and of his deciding to make France an atomic power, even though the move increased the danger of nuclear proliferation). A leisurely biography that stints on explaining how de Gaulle worked his imperious will, but scores in detailing his evolution as a symbol of national unity and as a geopolitical realist. (Photographs.)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-393-02699-X
Page Count: 700
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
