The wind goes out of Beran’s sails after Lincoln’s assassination, but he handles well the intriguing biographical histories...
A sprightly work of scholarship by journalist-historian Beran (Jefferson’s Demons: Portraits of a Restless Mind, 2003) cuts suspensefully among decisive moments in the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Otto von Bismarck and Russian Tsar Alexander II as they revolutionized their respective countries.
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and united a bitterly divided United States; Bismarck wrestled the German states from Hapsburg control and created a modern militaristic Prussian stronghold; Alexander gambled on reform by freeing the serfs and ushering in a rule of law. The three leaders essentially fashioned their countries into “machines of freedom,” the consequences of which still reverberate today. In alternating segments moving chronologically from 1861 to 1871 and after, Beran sets his vivid historical characters against increasingly dire backdrops. In Russia, the people were growing restive under a decaying autocracy, and Alexander, influenced by the British Enlightenment, wisely eschewed the traditional course of coercion followed by his forebears in favor of an uneasy brand of liberalism. Beran provides portraits of Turgenev and Tolstoy to flesh out these revolutionary ideas, which ultimately failed and led to the tsar’s assassination. In Germany, Bismarck, acting as minister-president for the ineffectual King Wilhelm on the motto “blood and iron,” broke with Berlin’s Parliament and challenged Austrian authority, using the music of Wagner and the poetry of militant nationalism to whip up popular support for his furious campaign of annexation. Most American readers will find the Lincoln sections the most riveting, as Beran re-enacts the agonizing decisions of the president as he tenaciously held to executive power in spite of Southern treachery, standing by dilatory General George McClellan just long enough to gain one decisive victory and stave off foreign intervention. The author also skillfully interweaves selections from Mary Chesnut’s diary and Walt Whitman’s work.
The wind goes out of Beran’s sails after Lincoln’s assassination, but he handles well the intriguing biographical histories of three legendary leaders.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-7069-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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