A fresh perspective on history.
Imagining the world as it might have been.
Veteran speechwriter Nussbaum highlights the contingencies of history by examining crucial speeches that, because of a change of events or a speaker’s change of mind, never were given. “Each of these speeches,” he writes, “provides a window into the fraught moments in which it was penned.” Besides offering key excerpts, and in some cases the entire speech, the author provides historical and biographical context, close readings for language and style, and speculations about how the speech might have altered the course of subsequent events. Among the undelivered speeches he identifies are John Lewis’ proposed remarks at the March on Washington, D.C., in 1963; Native American leader Wamsutta Frank James’ speech at the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim landing at Plymouth Rock; Helen Keller’s brief remarks at a suffrage parade in 1913, undelivered because of mob rioting; “the speech President Nixon was prepared to make refusing to resign in 1974”; Edward VIII’s equivocation about abdicating in 1939; Dwight Eisenhower’s apology in case of the failure of D-Day; Emperor Hirohito’s “shame-ridden apology for his role in starting World War II”; Condoleezza Rice’s foreign policy speech, planned for Sept. 11, 2001; and Hillary Clinton’s victory speech in 2016. Some of these texts, unearthed by Nussbaum, currently Joe Biden’s senior speechwriter, had been filed away for decades. Edward’s words, for example were rediscovered after nearly 70 years in documents released by the British Public Record Office in 2003. His plan—quashed by his ministers—“was to say that he wished to marry Mrs. Simpson, but neither of them would insist that she be queen. He would then go away to a foreign country while people made up their minds. If he were called back, he would resume his reign with Mrs. Simpson as his consort. If he weren’t, he would abdicate.” Nussbaum speculates that if Edward—sympathetic to Germany—had continued as king, the course of the war would have been dramatically different.
A fresh perspective on history.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-24070-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
HISTORY | MILITARY | UNITED STATES | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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