An inspiring introduction to the beloved general.
An upbeat biography of the great French American patriot who channeled his zeal into a formidable force of leadership.
Part of the new World Generals series featuring abbreviated careers of famous military leaders (Rommel, Alexander the Great, Ataturk, etc.) and their winning strategies, this accessible life of Lafayette (1757–1834) ably captures his essential fiery-eyed idealism, which might have led him to impetuousness had he not learned pragmatic lessons while on the battlefields of the American Revolution. In defiance of his family, Lafayette appeared on American shores at the age of 19. Leepson (Desperate Engagement: How a Little-Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C., and Changed American History, 2007, etc.) emphasizes his subject’s empathy for the American cause as stemming from his own father’s early death at the hands of the British during the Seven Years’ War. Moreover, Lafayette had never fit in comfortably at the French court, and he was steeped in the writings of the Enlightenment authors. Although the Americans had no love for the French, they were won over by Lafayette, who spent freely, always advocated for the provisions of his men, kept his cool under fire and was able to rally the spirit of his men. Above all, he was utterly loyal to George Washington, whom he considered a father figure, and accepted his commands, even when they didn’t suit the younger general’s eagerness. He was especially invaluable to the Revolutionary War effort by lobbying inexhaustibly—American officials and French government alike. Afterward, of course, he conveyed his patriotic ideals to the French Revolution, and even preached restraint during the bloody crisis, as well as during the July Revolution of 1830 in France, when Lafayette “prevented things from devolving into chaos and anarchy.” Leepson glances workmanlike over his later career.
An inspiring introduction to the beloved general.Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-230-10504-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
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
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
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