A solid and entertaining reference book packed with cultural highlights and pivotal moments from a wide array of sources.
This first installment of an American history series covers 1957 to 1976.
Borgen (The Relevance of Reason, 2013) bravely undertakes the herculean task of presenting an overview of recent U.S. history. In the book’s early chapters, it is clear that he recognizes the challenges inherent in curating such a gargantuan project, taking great pains to justify the setting of parameters. First, the author neatly summarizes the problematic nature of history as a discipline of study. Even the choice of an official start date for what he terms Modern America is a cause for much understandable hand-wringing. He eventually settles on his selection: “In 1957, even amidst the consumerism, confidence, and enthusiasm for all things American, the ferment of change was starting. The winds of change were everywhere.” Borgen also points to the cultural effects of increased life expectancy, whereby four generations coexist, often uneasily, which creates room for misunderstandings and frames of reference that do not match up neatly, a phenomenon that he terms “multi-generational ignorance.” Thus, the author asserts, this project can serve a dual purpose: A younger audience encounters information perhaps for the first time, and older readers revisit past memories, with both groups hopefully gaining a broader perspective. As Borgen begins to move through the designated years, some portions of the text have the feel of an almanac, with lists that include bestselling books, Oscar-nominated films, highly rated television programs, and popular slogans from the worlds of politics and advertising. But each year also features a more substantive section titled “Memorable Words from Speeches, Books, Writings, and Other Sources.” Crucially, the author follows each of these entries with a concise explanation of “context, meaning, and impact.” Likewise, he includes information about seminal books that appeared within the same year, at times producing delightful juxtapositions like these three titles from 1957: Atlas Shrugged, On the Road, and The Cat in the Hat. While readers may notice the occasional minor error—such as rendering the TV series Charlie’s Angels as “Charley’s Angels”—the volume retains a depth that goes far beyond simple nostalgia. The work’s approach to the study of history may inspire the search for commonalities without erasing differences. As a bonus, Borgen provides helpful ancillary resources, including an index, 376 endnotes, and many appendices.
A solid and entertaining reference book packed with cultural highlights and pivotal moments from a wide array of sources.Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9997299-0-8
Page Count: 526
Publisher: Schmitt & Brody Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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