A well-informed and -researched dissection of McKinley’s overlooked influence.
Longtime GOP strategist and political consultant Rove (Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, 2010) examines the rise to power of William McKinley during a fated moment in the country’s history.
McKinley, perhaps best known by Americans for the Alaskan mountain that once bore his name and the infamy of being one of the few American presidents to have been assassinated, was a vital and critical link in the history of the presidency. As Rove argues, McKinley’s rise to power in the election of 1896 resolved many of the issues that had dogged American politics since the end of the Civil War, ushering in a realignment of political priorities and a drive into the modern era. Though this is often attributed to his vice president and successor, Theodore Roosevelt, Rove insists that McKinley laid the foundation for the party’s dominance from 1896 to 1932. As a natural-born leader and orator who quickly rose to the rank of major in the Union Army during the Civil War, McKinley practiced law in Canton, Ohio, before entering his freshman year in Congress at the age of 34 in 1877. Ever loyal to the Republican Party, it was not until the 1894 midterm cycle that McKinley began to forge his image as a possible presidential candidate after a relentless stumping tour that brought him national attention. Rove proves himself a surprisingly nimble and adept writer, juxtaposing shrewd political analysis with narrative verve. He expertly breaks down the challenges of McKinley’s 1896 campaign, which he calls “the first modern presidential primary campaign”—namely, the battle over currency and his policy of protective tariffs. Set against the backdrop of the ongoing recession caused by the Panic of 1893, McKinley’s campaign and defeat of Democrat William Jennings Bryan ensured support of “sound” money (gold) and would lead to the American century.
A well-informed and -researched dissection of McKinley’s overlooked influence.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5295-2
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 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.
