Of most interest to military historians and Revolutionary War buffs.
A historian offers a blow-by-blow re-creation of George Washington’s 1776 Christmas crossing of the Delaware and the capture of Trenton.
Washington’s shocking victory over the Hessian garrison occupying Trenton gave teeth to the Declaration of Independence, greatly enhanced his own and his discouraged army’s reputations, sobered public opinion in Britain and fueled hope that France might intervene to aid the struggling young nation. As he charts the icy river crossing, the arduous march to Trenton and the vicissitudes of the urban battle that followed, Tucker (Barksdale's Charge: The True High Tide of the Confederacy at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, 2013, etc.) appears to have missed no detail: the varying intensity of the snow, sleet and wind; every feature of the topography; the positioning of each cannon; the nuances of the attack and the counterattack. He’s out to explode some myths, especially the supposed incompetence of Hessian commander Col. Johann Rall and the holiday drunkenness of his troops. Tucker also highlights overlooked aspects of the fight, such as Washington’s distinctively American battle plan (employing guerrilla tactics of frontier warfare and anticipating artillery tactics perfected by Napoleon), the unusually varied composition of the Continental Army and the crucial roles played by some of Washington’s top lieutenants, particularly artillery commander Henry Knox and mariner John Glover, who supervised the crossing. As the story unfolds, Tucker supplies numerous minibios of battle participants—some names that would loom larger in our history (Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe) and others (the rakish Tench Tilghman, French and Indian war hero John Stark) now mostly forgotten. Although marred by far too many repetitions, hackneyed locutions and a tedious insistence upon his various theses, Tucker’s account brims with colorful information—about the delicacy of Washington’s military maneuver, the double envelopment, about a female sniper firing on the enemy, about “the solid Hessian wall…of walking muskets”—that vivifies this pivotal episode in American history.
Of most interest to military historians and Revolutionary War buffs.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62873-652-6
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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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