A balanced, welcome new addition to the Wilson shelf.
O’Toole (When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House, 2005, etc.) adds to a long list of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) biographies with a skillfully crafted account of the president’s life and legacy.
As suggested in the title, Wilson considered himself the moral conscience of the United States, and he acted accordingly. After earning a doctorate in political science from Johns Hopkins, he went on to serve as president of Princeton University, a position he approached with an inflexible certainty that he would carry into the White House, a stance that eventually led to impassioned opposition from many fellow Democrats and almost all Republicans. The author narrates the saga chronologically, and her use of anecdotes, foreshadowing, and foils to Wilson results in a lengthy book that is nonetheless a compelling page-turner; the author also has a pleasing prose style. As expected, the majority of the chapters focus on the debate over whether the U.S. should surrender its neutrality to enter World War I, the progress of the war from an American perspective, and the agonizing aftermath as Wilson failed to push through the League of Nations he conceived. Though not exactly groundbreaking news, many readers will still be shocked by the massive coverup of Wilson’s declining health by his wife, Edith, and some of his advisers. O’Toole softens her subject’s hard edges by showing his romantic side with his first wife, who died young, with Edith, and with his three daughters. In addition, the author pays adequate attention to Wilson’s early domestic legislative achievements as well as his tendency toward racism and his overbearing public certainty, which he maintained despite frequent private doubts. Many of O’Toole’s revelations break fresh ground, including the unreliability of Wilson adviser Edward M. House as a source. A bonus derives from the obvious relevance of the Wilson presidency to 21st-century politics. The ways in which Wilson expanded presidential powers bring to mind presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
A balanced, welcome new addition to the Wilson shelf.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9809-4
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
PERSPECTIVES
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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