Readers will decide if Arnold’s choices were forced upon him or if he was, indeed, flawed. Malcolm provides plenty to...
An attempt to bring understanding, if not forgiveness, to the story of Benedict Arnold (1741-1801).
Examining a variety of primary sources, including Russell M. Lea’s 2008 publication of Arnold’s war correspondence and other Arnold papers “recently discovered in Quebec,” Malcolm (George Mason Univ. School of Law; Peter's War: A New England Slave Boy and the American Revolution, 2009, etc.) dives further into the psyche of the man synonymous with the word “traitor.” His ability as a soldier, acknowledged even by the British, and continued heroics indicate a truly talented, heroic patriot who dedicated his life, lost his fortune, and suffered crippling injury for the American cause. Arnold was also rash and impetuous, and his pride and successes made many enemies. The micromanaging of the Army by the Congress made such rivalries more common, as they often appointed ill-qualified but well-connected leaders. After Ticonderoga, Arnold led a heroic trek through the bleak winter landscape to meet up with Gen. Philip Schuyler at Montreal. But Col. Roger Enos abandoned that trek and left with a third of Arnold’s force. Even so, Arnold was successful at Montreal and then built a fleet of shallow draft boats on Lake Champlain to block the British. At Saratoga, Gen. Horatio Gates disliked him intensely and confined Arnold to his tent. Not to be held back, he led the leaderless army to turn the battle, but he was also grievously injured. George Washington sent him to Philadelphia to lead, a huge mistake since Arnold had very little political ability. He was often denied pay and promotions, and a series of false accusations pushed him over the edge. Others would suffer similarly and resign their commissions, but Arnold felt the war was lost and turned to the British. The author does her best to paint her subject as underappreciated—and is mostly successful in that endeavor—and she rejects the accusations that his wife drove him to treason.
Readers will decide if Arnold’s choices were forced upon him or if he was, indeed, flawed. Malcolm provides plenty to consider.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-737-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
PERSPECTIVES
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
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