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STONEWALL JACKSON

THE MAN, THE SOLDIER, THE LEGEND

A sprawling life of the great Confederate cavalryman. Civil War historian Robertson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) covers the well-known facts about Thomas Jackson's life, from his birth to a hardscrabble Scots-Irish farm family in 1824 to his death at Chancellorsville in 1863, giving special attention to Jackson's brilliance as a strategist. Along the way he examines Jackson's well-deserved reputation for bravery under fire, which earned him the sobriquet ``Stonewall.'' He points as well to some apparent contradictions in Jackson's character, among them his dislike of combat's aftermath—his first sight of a battlefield corpse, in the American war against Mexico, wrote young Jackson, ``filled me with as much sickening dismay as if I had been a woman''—but his thrill nonetheless at being in battle and hearing the Rebel yell (``the sweetest music I ever heard'') sounding all around him. Perhaps the greatest contradiction of all, Robertson notes, was Jackson's fervent religiosity, matched with his unswerving dedication to killing the Union foe. Robertson's insightful account of this character and his thoughtful narration of the many crucial battles in which he fought so capably make this the best biography of the general yet written. Robertson packs his text with well-chosen detail, and he unfolds his narrative at a leisurely, careful pace. It takes him 25 detail-filled pages to trace the events surrounding Jackson's death by friendly fire. There is so much detail in these pages, in fact, that the sheer volume of facts sometimes overwhelms the larger story, which is Jackson's essential tactical contributions to the Confederate cause at the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Malvern Hill, and Chancellorsville. Die-hard Civil War buffs will find this an essential addition to their collections. (17 b&w photos, 14 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)

Pub Date: March 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-02-864685-1

Page Count: 924

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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