by Mary Mudd ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 30, 2005
A corrective biography that starts off slow but eventually rights its wrongs.
Mudd’s (Studies in the Reign of Constantius II, 1989) laudatory biography aims to set the story straight on Livia Drusilla, Rome’s much-celebrated but historically reviled first empress.
For years following her death in A.D. 29, the devoted wife of Roman Emperor Augustus was revered as a subtly powerful, politically cunning arbiter of motherhood and feminism. At a time when women were predominantly uneducated homemakers and mothers, young, ambitious Livia demanded an education and later instilled that drive in her descendants, who included emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula and Nero. But thanks to various historical accounts that portray Livia as domineering and conniving, particularly regarding the suspicious deaths of individuals posing a threat to her son Tiberius’ reign, Livia is mostly remembered for her supposed malignance. Perhaps chiefly responsible for her infamy today is Robert Graves’ novel I, Claudius (1934), which depicts Livia as a devious, power-hungry matriarch seemingly responsible for every act of malevolence surrounding Tiberius’ ascendancy. After taking issue with what she considers to be Graves’ inaccurate account, Mudd revisited whatever historical sources she could find to reveal the “inescapable discovery…that Livia could not have committed the crimes of which she has stood accused for two millennia.” While Mudd indeed delves deep to make her assertions, she doesn’t do so until nearly halfway through the book. The opening establishes historical context, often with a stream of commas: “His brilliant military strategies had won Octavian’s wars, against Sextus Pompeius, in Illyria, at Actium, and in Alexandria.” These painfully dry sections struggle to cement her thesis; readers might all but forget it until nearly 100 pages in. Frequent digressions, such as discrepancies related to the birthdate of Livia’s second son, further detract from the book’s intentions. But though the beginning suffers from disorganization, Mudd’s objective finally takes shape when she devotes an entire chapter to Livia’s significance as “an active and influential civil servant, the symbol of a new system of government, and eventually a divinity.” Another chapter breaks down each baleful act history credits to her and makes thoughtful suppositions as to why Livia is exempt of them all. In a particularly passionate chapter, “Explaining the Sinister Tradition,” Mudd addresses the widespread misconceptions surrounding Livia’s life, clarifying the credibility of available sources. With each chapter, Mudd’s earnestness snowballs, generating a sense of energy that should spark new interest in an old tale.
A corrective biography that starts off slow but eventually rights its wrongs.Pub Date: June 30, 2005
ISBN: 978-1412046060
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Trafford
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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