A marvelously concise yet thorough rundown of an issue with significant geopolitical ramifications.
A comprehensive study of the effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese victims and the bilateral political attempt to help them.
Between 1961 and 1970, the United States military sprayed more than 10,000-square miles of Vietnam—and more than 5 million acres of farmland—with the herbicide known as Agent Orange in an attempt to destroy crops and generate massive defoliation. Agent Orange contained dioxin, a highly toxic compound, to which as many as 4 million Vietnamese and nearly 3 million American service people were exposed. Debut authors Bailey and Son collaboratively furnish a brief but impressively comprehensive synopsis of the medical and political aftermath of Agent Orange’s use. In the wake of the war, both the U.S. and Vietnam were reluctant to publicly discuss the issue, and Vietnam’s own research on the damage wasn’t declassified until the 2000s, making a joint national effort to remedy the situation all but impossible. That all changed in 2006, however, when U.S. President George W. Bush issued a joint statement with Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet that included the issue as a talking point, breaking the seal of silence that functioned as a barricade to bilateral cooperation. The authors unflinchingly discuss the extraordinary physical and mental effects of Agent Orange, including lung cancer, diminished mobility, and birth defects, based on the most widely accepted epigenetic and epidemiological studies. They also consider the successes and failures of the binational cooperation to assist the victims. Bailey and Son are remarkably knowledgeable about the subject. The former is a public policy analyst who spearheaded the Ford Foundation’s initiative on Agent Orange, and the latter is a medical doctor and toxicologist who served as the director of the Agent Orange Victims Fund at the Vietnam Red Cross. Collectively, the authors’ breadth is remarkable—they even analyze the attempts to pursue legal action on behalf of the victims. Also, they display admirable intellectual restraint, admitting when appropriate the inconclusiveness of the scientific studies causally linking Agent Orange to specific medical maladies.
A marvelously concise yet thorough rundown of an issue with significant geopolitical ramifications.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9993413-1-5
Page Count: 242
Publisher: G. Anton Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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