In a felicitous synthesis of history, sociology, psychology, and anthropology, Tuttle (History and American Studies/Univ. of Kansas) represents in rich detail the intersection between public events and the way young children perceived them during WW II. Identifying differences of class, race, religion, age, gender, and geographical and ethnic background, Tuttle describes the psychic landscape (characterized by the pervasiveness of death and the trivialization of life), the fears (of air raids, blackouts, separations, relocations, gas chambers, and the atom bomb), and the challenges (collecting tin, buying war bonds and stamps in school, learning patriotic songs, sacrificing sugar and bubble gum, and planting ``victory'' gardens) that shaped a generation of children now entering its 50s. The concept of childhood itself, Tuttle contends, changed or was simply lost during WW II—a war characterized by working mothers, distant and endangered fathers, and disrupted communities as 30 million Americans moved to service the war industries. Popular culture (radio, movies, comics) contributed to bigotry, conformity, and intolerance—especially of Italians, Germans, Jews, and Japanese (112,000 American-Japanese were interred in domestic concentration camps, their possessions confiscated). Victory brought more disruptions as physically and psychologically wounded men returned to a newly configured society in which their authority was displaced by women, as well as by a government that had begun to intervene in the family by providing welfare services. Meanwhile, children's physical health took priority over their mental health with a plague of polio that in its secretive and invasive nature, Tuttle says, resembled the war just fought. And just as autocratic systems of government were defeated abroad, so were rigid systems of child-rearing at home replaced by Dr. Spock's liberalism. Artful and absorbing.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-19-504905-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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