A highly critical, honest, and opinionated chronicle by a top United Nations official of the period that saw the UN’s transformation from peace-keeper to peace-enforcer. During the spring and summer of 1995, Corwin served as the UN’s chief political officer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A firm believer in the UN’s historic mission as international peacekeeper, he strove for impartiality in his work and expected the same of his employer. But as peace finally appeared possible, Corwin witnessed the UN’s disturbing transition to the role of active combatant. His book, comprised of 1995 diaries and later commentaries, directly addresses this specific phase of the Bosnian war, which the author considers a turning point of lasting significance for the UN and international affairs. Corwin makes no attempt to disguise either his clear sympathy with the UN or his outright and direct criticism of—in fact, contempt for—other parties, foremost among them the international press (for their unobjective pro-Bosnian stance), the Bosnian government (for provoking NATO to enter the conflict and for rude treatment of the UN staff), and NATO (for fighting under the UN flag rather than its own and destroying “UNPROFOR’s integrity as a peacekeeping force”). Corwin does not mince words. “The leaders of all the various factions in Bosnia were merely gangsters wearing coats and ties,” he writes. Jocular and disdainful comments about the press are frequent: the UN staff dubbed the press the International Order of Reptiles; Corwin refers to CNN in his official faxes as Certainly Not Neutral; and reporter David Rohde, later held hostage by Bosnian Serbs, is described as an “ambitious, peripatetic opportunist.” Despite occasional descriptive excess, Corwin gives an honest account, clearly and succinctly explains his biases, and provides useful insight into key figures, episodes, and encounters during this pivotal phase. Trenchant observations on the Bosnian war of particular interest to those trying to make sense of the latest events in the Balkans.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8223-2126-2
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Duke Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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
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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