An intriguing dissection of how maps, with their pictorial clarity and aura of scientific objectivity, have exerted the power to persuade—and often mislead. Maps have a deceptively simple appearance, partly because the need for readablitiy requires cartographers to limit content, partly because mapmakers may be reflecting their own biases, according to Monmonier (Geography/Syracuse Univ.; How to Lie With Maps, not reviewed, etc.). He begins by recounting how the West German Arno Peters won worldwide media attention in the 1980s by criticizing the commonly used Mercator projection as Eurocentric- -and then proposed a revision that distorted lands to reflect his own leftist views. The story of the 1965 ``Vinland'' map, which purported to prove that Leif Ericson had discovered America several centuries before Columbus, becomes a tale of ethnic sensitivities (Italian-Americans were pressing then to have Columbus Day made a national holiday) and the hoodwinking of a highbrow institution (Yale accepted the map and was embarrassed by the 1974 revelation that it was a fraud). Monmonier equally displays an eye for the pungent detail (e.g., some US maps still feature ethnically insensitive place names such as Chinks Peak and Squaw Tits) and the ability to paint a broad historical context, as in detailing how one British geographer's warning about the importance of controlling ``the Heartland'' of Eastern Europe was ignored by his countrymen, until the Nazi-Soviet Pact proved him right. He also examines how maps have been used to settle boundary disputes between nations and neighbors; to redraw electoral districts to save incumbents' seats or gain power for minorities; to help bureaucrats convince a town to accept an incinerator, landfill, or nuclear waste dump; and, conversely, to protect against environmental catastrophes. A revealing analysis that shows how maps sometimes deserve a place in the unholy triumvirate of lies, damned lies, and statistics. (30 b&w drawings and 15 half-tones)
Pub Date: Dec. 20, 1994
ISBN: 0-8050-2581-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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