Illuminates the shadowy corners of an era shrouded in the mists of legend.
An account of the Germanic king Karl, whose legend has obscured the facts and embellished his accomplishments.
Like Robin Hood and King Arthur, Charlemagne is a historical figure who has become something more than human with the passage of time. After being crowned emperor of Rome by Pope Leo III on Christmas day in a.d. 800, he stood as one of the most powerful men in the world, a monarch who defended the church, consolidated and codified laws and sought to break down linguistic barriers dividing the people of Europe. His legacy casts a long shadow even today, particularly in Brussels, where the European Union’s headquarters is named in his honor. Unlike the 200-year-old sage in the epic Song of Roland, however, the real Charlemagne, known as Karl, was more likely to be found swimming or enjoying the ruckus created by his grandchildren than issuing grand proclamations that would alter the course of world history. Sypeck, who previously covered this subject for middle-schoolers (The Holy Roman Empire and Charlemagne in World History, not reviewed), works here to deconstruct and dispel myths about both Charlemagne and his era. He also explores the Frankish kingdom’s relative religious harmony, highlighted by Karl’s peaceful overtures toward Muslim caliph Harun al-Rashid and his comparatively benevolent treatment of Jews (who would endure far worse, the author notes, in the centuries to come). Al-Rashid’s gift of Abul Abaz, an elephant delivered to Karl by his Jewish ambassador, epitomizes this intermingling of cultures. Debunking the myths that surround legendary figures is a tricky business, but Sypeck acknowledges the allure of the ways in which Charlemagne and his era have been romanticized, mitigating the sting and turning it into an educational opportunity.
Illuminates the shadowy corners of an era shrouded in the mists of legend.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-079706-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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