A remarkably evenhanded biography of an important player in Arab history that doubles as a crucial scholarly...
Biography of the famous early-20th-century Arab nationalist and soldier Fawzi al-Qawuqji (1890-1977).
Parsons (History and Islamic Studies/McGill Univ.; The Druze between Palestine and Israel, 1947-49, 2000) offers a short but satisfying account of the life and military adventures of al-Qawuqji, a passionate supporter of Arab unity who played a significant role in many of the conflicts that gave rise to the modern Middle East. The author provides brief sketches of al-Qawuqji’s character, but recounting and contextualizing his eventful life is her main focus. Following al-Qawuqji from his early days soldiering for the Ottoman Empire to his role in major anti-colonial revolts in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq, Parsons conveys the epic sweep of his life and his importance to Arab history in matter-of-fact terms: “[His] life was the story of one individual, not the history of a nation. He found himself in particular places, made particular choices, and even fought particular battles, largely as a result of personal circumstances.” The author’s style is determinedly unromantic—a feature, not a flaw. The effect of her careful, analytical approach is to dismantle various myths and misinterpretations that have developed around the period. For example, in writing about the British invasion of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Parsons notes, “of course the better-known story about Arabs in World War I is that of the pro-British Arab Revolt of 1916, helped by the British officer T.E. Lawrence. But in military terms the Arab Revolt was a sideshow.” In addition to a much-needed biography of al-Qawuqji, the author provides a history of the heyday and collapse of Arab nationalism. Especially in writing about al-Qawuqji’s leadership of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Parsons is unerring in pointing to the factional rivalries and structural difficulties that impeded cooperation between the fledgling Arab states.
A remarkably evenhanded biography of an important player in Arab history that doubles as a crucial scholarly reinterpretation of the rise and fall of Arab nationalism.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8090-6712-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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