Whitelaw follows They Wrote Their Own Headlines (1994), on American women journalists, with a probing biography of the greatest of them all. Focusing on the internal obstacles Katharine Graham overcame in building a moderately successful newspaper into a major communications empire, the author develops a conspicuous theme, creating a portrait of a woman whose innate drive was buried beneath feelings of personal and gender inferiority until her husband’s suicide propelled her into a leadership role. While chronicling her subject’s change from submissive wife to strong, independent woman, Whitelaw notes without comment the way Graham’s early interest in labor issues and membership in the Newspaper Guild did not keep her from breaking a union at the Post, or responding late and not very forcefully to complaints of racial discrimination within her organization. The book is not going to win any journalism awards; as the sources bear out, the author relies heavily on Graham’s Personal History (1997) for much of the material; still, if Whitelaw doesn’t always line up independent comment, she is also never blindly adulatory. The narrative sometimes bogs down in details of corporate acquisitions, and the back matter, which includes an arbitrary list of noteworthy events in American journalism that ends in 1981, is more extensive than useful; still, all quotes are traced, and Graham’s achievements, both public and personal, are clearly laid out. (b&w photos, glossary, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-15)
Pub Date: Dec. 8, 1998
ISBN: 1-883846-37-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
. Adamson is revered as one of the pioneers of the endangered animal movement; Neimark, though capturing much of Adamson’s milieu and the events of her life, paints her as a talented, but impulsive, moody woman. Growing up in Austria between world wars, Adamson trained as a pianist and as an artist. At 18, while attending a ball, she is carried off by a masked “apache” who declares, “You are mine.” The author burbles: “She felt the strength of his arms and the gritty warmth of his body.” That’s only one instance where the lack of source notes is keenly felt; readers will have to digest some astonishing information unaided. Although her romantic interlude lasts two years, her lover’s identity remains concealed (readers will have to suppose that she knew who he was, even if they don’t); Adamson, pregnant and abandoned, has an abortion, becomes a patient of Sigmund Freud, marries twice, and has two miscarriages before meeting her third husband, George Adamson, a gamekeeper in Kenya, who brings home three orphaned lion cubs. The many anecdotes comprising this biography are interesting, but without citations, leave readers unsettled; what is the possible source for Adamson’s dramatic death scene following a confrontation with a disgruntled ex-employee? “Blood seeped from her, but she felt no regrets. She had always chosen risk over safety. She would not, even now, be victim to fear.” (bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-14)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201368-7
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
Katz (Black Women of the Old West, 1995, etc.) takes fascinating material—the tale of free and escaped African-Americans who helped colonize the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys from the late 18th-century to the middle of the 19th century—and gives it a textbook treatment. In this gathering of details and events in the lives of real people who settled the area, he presents a full history of the contributions of determined people who established schools and churches, fought slavery, and won basic civil rights. The many black-and-white period drawings and photographs help establish the people in the narrative and the facts surrounding their lives. The facts alone, one after the other, add up to a cogent picture of the growing wealth and importance of African-Americans in US history, but the dry presentation may doom it to use solely for reference or as a supplement to more inviting works. (index, not seen, maps, charts, notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81410-0
Page Count: 171
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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