As this useful volume of powerful prose ably illustrates, what often survives a political collision is moral clarity. (10...
Selections from the writings of two of the foremost antagonists among the Founding Fathers, edited and explained by historian and biographer Cunningham (In Pursuit of Reason, 1987).
Cunningham’s efforts will forever dispel any romantic notions that the Founding Fathers were a troop of amiable Boy Scouts. The Jefferson and Hamilton on display here are fierce opponents, each absolutely convinced that the other was a danger to the fledgling country. Cunningham has juxtaposed some of the principal writings of both men (most of the pieces are excerpts) and supplied some genial commentary—all intended to “reveal how the two leading political figures faced the major issues of their day.” Hamilton (younger than Jefferson by 12 years) did not trust the general public: “The people are turbulent and changing,” he wrote in 1787, “they seldom judge or determine right.” Jefferson, by contrast, had supreme faith in the electorate and wished to guarantee the survival of liberty by improving “the education of the common people.” Cunningham reveals that there is no record of the first meeting between the men, but they both were members of Washington’s first cabinet—Jefferson was Secretary of State, and Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. Their first important clash was over the formation of the national bank (Hamilton favored it—and won). Jefferson hated Hamilton’s fondness for paper currency and later wrote Washington that he believed he had been “duped” by Hamilton and “made a tool for forwarding his schemes.” Hamilton later called Jefferson “a contemptible hypocrite” and could not bring himself to credit Jefferson even for Louisiana, whose purchase, sniped Hamilton, was due to “fortuitous . . . circumstances” rather than “any wise or vigorous measure.” Cunningham concludes—somewhat superfluously—that “both men contributed greatly to the shaping of the American nation.”
As this useful volume of powerful prose ably illustrates, what often survives a political collision is moral clarity. (10 illustrations)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2000
ISBN: 0-312-22821-X
Page Count: 202
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
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
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
