A well-researched, thoughtful biography of a woman who “became entirely her own person, a rare feat for women of her day.”
Biography of the 19th-century socialite who made her way to or near “the center of more major events…than any woman and most men of her time.”
Born at a time in American history when females could neither vote nor hold office, Kate Chase Sprague (1840-1899) came to wield more political influence than any American woman ever had before. Her father and first political teacher was Salmon Chase. After he won the governorship of Ohio in 1855, Chase made his beautiful and accomplished daughter into his hostess and political confidante. When he accepted Lincoln’s appointment as treasury secretary on the eve of the Civil War in March 1861, Kate immediately established a social “court” in Washington that outshone that of Lincoln’s far-less-glamorous wife, Mary. Both father and daughter became known for the brilliance of their gatherings as well as the ruthlessness of their communal desire to eventually occupy the White House. In an effort to secure the money they needed to fund their political dream, Kate married the wealthy but erratic Rhode Island businessman-turned-politician William Sprague. While her staunchly anti-slavery father eventually broke with the Republican Party he helped found and made an unsuccessful run for the presidency as a Democrat, Kate’s marriage to Sprague foundered. She became the mistress of the charismatic, and married, New York state senator and Republican Party boss Roscoe Conkling. Their scandalous affair shared the headlines with other major events of the day, including the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881. Divorce the following year “dethroned” Kate from her unofficial status as American political “Queen” and made her a social outcast who would die in poverty at the age of 58. Oller’s work is less the story of a woman’s political rise and fall and more one that reveals how the social limitations of the past created tragic outcomes for talented females.
A well-researched, thoughtful biography of a woman who “became entirely her own person, a rare feat for women of her day.”Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-306-82280-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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