A concise, lucid tour of the writings and wide-ranging ideas of the American regarded in many quarters as “the founder of the modern conservative movement.” Person (Senior Editor, Gale Research) argues, however, that Russell Kirk (1918-94) should be viewed not as an ideologue but as a man of letters. It’s true that his 1953 study The Conservative Mind identified a line of conservative thought stretching back to 18th-century England, isolated certain social and political theories that could be termed “conservative,” and asserted the continuing relevance of a coherent body of thought opposed to large government and insisting on the moral primacy (and responsibilities) of the individual. But Kirk, Person points out, steered clear of any deep involvement in Republican politics. He was, first and foremost, a writer, producing during a lengthy career “32 books, 800 essays, book reviews, and articles, and more than 3,000 newspaper and magazine columns.” His books, some of them pugnacious in their historical assertions and contemporary criticisms, included biographies (Edmund Burke), histories (The Roots of American Order), literary and social criticism (Enemies of the Permanent Things, Eliot and His Age), political theory (A Program for Conservatives), and critiques of contemporary education (Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning). Person devotes chapters to each of these areas, explicating Kirk’s theories in these fields while stressing the extent to which each was part of an ambitious attempt to apply conservative principles to most elements of social life. A brief but admiring sketch of Kirk’s life stresses the extent to which he practiced the humane conservatism he preached. The subtitle is somewhat confusing: This is not so much a biography of a conservative’s thoughts as a thoughtful analysis of the arguments advanced in each of Kirk’s major books. Given Kirk’s influence on the concepts that many contemporary conservatives claim to embrace, his work will surely continue to be both influential and controversial. Person offers an excellent guide to his legacy. (15 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56833-131-2
Page Count: 235
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
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
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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