Unusually well-written for an academic history, with incisive character sketches of Washington, Jefferson and other patriots...
Informative biography of the Prussian soldier who helped George Washington train America’s revolutionary army.
Lockhart (History/Wright State Univ.) acknowledges the character shortcomings of Friedrich von Steuben (1730–94), including the petty European nobleman’s penchant for enhancing his back story. By the time he arrived on American soil in 1777, the honorary title Freiherr von Steuben had been very loosely translated into the more distinguished (and Gallic) Baron de Steuben. Still, the author admires Steuben for his legitimate knowledge of military training and tactics. Working his way into General Washington’s command structure, the Prussian professional could see that America’s army was a shambles: poorly trained, poorly supplied and almost certain, it seemed, to lose battle after battle until it lost the war. Steuben knew how to whip the tattered troops into shape, Lockhart avers, lucidly delineating his tactics and psychological skills. Even readers who care little about the details of Revolutionary War battles may well find Steuben’s maneuvers captivating. His biographer credits him with combining expertise in military training, empathy for the beleaguered troops and a forceful personality (unafraid of calculated theatrics to make his points) to make this ramshackle army battle-ready in a scant three months. Lafayette is the most famous of the foreigners who came to America to help defeat the British, but Lockhart believes that Steuben deserves more credit. The states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York agreed, giving the baron grants of land in gratitude for his services, and newly elected President Washington in 1789 solicited his advice on the structure and mission of the postwar army. Having gained citizenship and a modest pension from in his adopted country, Steuben showed his enthusiasm and loyalty by never returning to Europe.
Unusually well-written for an academic history, with incisive character sketches of Washington, Jefferson and other patriots complementing Lockhart’s full-bodied portrait of Steuben.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-145163-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Smithsonian/Collins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Demonstrates how very thin is the gilt on the Golden State.
With humor, history, nostalgia, and acerbity, Didion (Political Fictions, 2001, etc.) considers the conundrums of California, her beloved home state.
Pieces of this remarkable memoir have appeared in the writer’s usual venues (e.g., the New York Review of Books), but she has crafted the connections among them so artfully that the work acquires a surprising cumulative power. Didion tells a number of stories that would not in lesser hands appear to be related: the arrival in California of her pioneer ancestors, the nasty 1993 episode involving randy adolescents who called themselves the “Spur Posse,” the fall of the aerospace industry in the 1990s, her 1948 eighth-grade graduation speech (“Our California Heritage”), the history of the state, and the death of her parents. Along the way she deals with some California novels from earlier days, Jack London’s The Valley of the Moon and Frank Norris’s The Octopus, and explores the community histories of Hollister, Irvine, and Lakewood (home of the Posse). She sees fundamental contradictions in the California dream. For one, older generations resented the arrival of the “newcomers,” who in their minds were spoiling the view. But as Didion points out, the old-timers had once done the same. More profound is her recognition that Californians, many of whom embrace the ideal of rugged individualism and reject “government interference,” nonetheless have accepted from the feds sums of money vast enough to mesmerize Midas. Water-management programs have been especially costly, but tax breaks for all sorts of other industries and enterprises have greatly enriched some in the state (railroad magnates, housing developers, defense contractors) while most everyone else battles for scraps beneath the table. Most affecting are her horrifying portrait of Lakewood as a community devoted to high-school sports at the expense of scholarship and her wrenching accounts of the deaths of her father and mother.
Demonstrates how very thin is the gilt on the Golden State.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2003
ISBN: 0-679-43332-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.
Based on eight years of reporting and thousands of hours of interaction, a journalist chronicles the inner worlds of three women’s erotic desires.
In her dramatic debut about “what longing in America looks like,” Taddeo, who has contributed to Esquire, Elle, and other publications, follows the sex lives of three American women. On the surface, each woman’s story could be a soap opera. There’s Maggie, a teenager engaged in a secret relationship with her high school teacher; Lina, a housewife consumed by a torrid affair with an old flame; and Sloane, a wealthy restaurateur encouraged by her husband to sleep with other people while he watches. Instead of sensationalizing, the author illuminates Maggie’s, Lina’s, and Sloane’s erotic experiences in the context of their human complexities and personal histories, revealing deeper wounds and emotional yearnings. Lina’s infidelity was driven by a decade of her husband’s romantic and sexual refusal despite marriage counseling and Lina's pleading. Sloane’s Fifty Shades of Grey–like lifestyle seems far less exotic when readers learn that she has felt pressured to perform for her husband's pleasure. Taddeo’s coverage is at its most nuanced when she chronicles Maggie’s decision to go to the authorities a few years after her traumatic tryst. Recounting the subsequent trial against Maggie’s abuser, the author honors the triumph of Maggie’s courageous vulnerability as well as the devastating ramifications of her community’s disbelief. Unfortunately, this book on “female desire” conspicuously omits any meaningful discussion of social identities beyond gender and class; only in the epilogue does Taddeo mention race and its impacts on women's experiences with sex and longing. Such oversight brings a palpable white gaze to the narrative. Compounded by the author’s occasionally lackluster prose, the book’s flaws compete with its meaningful contribution to #MeToo–era reporting.
Dramatic, immersive, and wanting—much like desire itself.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-4229-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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