Eye-catching work that highlights moving stories of commitment and sacrifice.
Brief historical biographies and photographs of a variety of fighters for independence from colonial rule.
In this collaborative work first published in France in 2020, the authors present short narratives of crusaders for justice and independence from colonizers, ranging from India to Congo to Algeria. The book is divided into three parts: “Apprenticeship (1857-1926),” “Liberation (1927-1954),” and “The World Is Ours (1956-present).” Refreshingly, many of the figures profiled are little known to general readers: Manikarnika Tambe, queen of Jhansi, who refused to surrender to the British during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (“she died fighting, never thinking that she would become the great heroine of Indian independence”); Alice Seeley Harris, a British missionary in King Leopold’s Congo who documented ongoing atrocities with her camera and revealed them to the world (“the incontrovertible evidence of the pictures provoked the first humanitarian scandal in modern times”); early Kenyan activist Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru, who helped lead “the women busily inventing a new society, a society not controlled by men”; and Gandhi’s colleague Sarojini Naidu, who fought tirelessly for “her sisters, the forgotten women of India—the widows, the unmarried, the women killed over a dowry dispute, the girls married off at age nine.” The French authors particularly focus on the anti-colonial struggles of French African countries, spotlighting the crusading work of Senegalese-born Lamine Senghor, French Army veteran, journalist, and militant communist; Vietnamese Communist leader Nguyen Ai Quoc, “later to be known as Ho Chi Minh”; and a host of Algerian independence activists and fighters. The authors cite Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar for his activism to abolish the caste system in India, especially for the untouchables, and Congo leader Patrice Lumumba’s hope to be a part of his country’s new ruling class is both inspiring and heartbreaking. With bold graphics and photographs and fiery depictions, the book is a fitting addition to any library collection on global colonialism and activism.
Eye-catching work that highlights moving stories of commitment and sacrifice.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63542-103-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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