A highly speculative historical argument from Costello (Virtue Under Fire, 1986, etc.): that the flight of Hitler's aide Rudolf Hess to Britain in May 1941 was not the isolated act of a madman, but the result of a year of secret maneuvering between the Nazi regime and appeasement-minded members of Churchill's cabinet. In the wake of the fall of France in May 1940, Costello argues, Britain's situation appeared so bleak that certain members of the coalition War Cabinet—conspicuously, Halifax, the foreign secretary—favored (and initiated) efforts to reach an accommodation with Hitler that would not threaten British independence. Churchill was engaged in a battle with these politicians as bitter in its way as the war with Germany, Costello maintains. He says (and many historians agree) that Hitler actually favored such a negotiated peace in order to give himself a free hand in the East. Costello argues (again, unexceptionably) that many members of the British political establishment and aristocracy sympathized with Hitler's fascist and anti-Semitic philosophy. However, Costello fails to make the connection convincingly between these well-documented facts and his central thesis—that Hess made his 1941 flight bearing an authoritative offer of peace from Hitler, and that the Hess flight was actually a last-minute attempt to reach a negotiated peace with Britain on the eve of Hitler's crusade against Bolshevism. Costello's evidence for this is slender and amounts to a highly conjectural circumstantial case. Provocative but unconvincing.
Pub Date: July 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-688-08662-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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