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CHURCHILL

Expert essays on a fascinating subject, edited by Blake (A History of Rhodesia, 1978, etc.) and Louis (English History and Culture/Univ. of Texas). The editors have rounded up 29 specialists who distill their expertise into brief pieces that summarize many aspects of Churchill (``perhaps the great figure in 20th-century history,'' suggest Blake and Louis). The text glitters with gems like Russian diplomat Ivan Maisky's prophecy (quoted in an essay by Robin Edmond) that Churchill would come to power ``when the critical moment...arrives...because he is a major and forceful figure, whereas the other members of the cabinet are colorless mediocrities.'' As George Addison explains elsewhere, Churchill, even in his early career, was not only a writer/journalist but a hard fighter for humane social reform, ``a founder of the welfare state.'' David Cannadine tackles Churchill's family, the Marlboroughs, a conniving, dishonest, nearly perfect disgrace to the very idea of aristocracy—but the future politician was loyal to them, Cannadine says, and it cost him dearly. David Craig's piece on Churchill and Germany follows, illustrating the British leader's limitations (no grasp of German language, literature, or music) but also his lack of rancor and a view of Versailles that was both shrewd and enlightened. ``Churchill and Stalin,'' by Robin Edmonds, reveals Churchill's lifelong antipathy to Russia; to understand the WW II rapprochement between Churchill and Stalin, it's necessary to read other essays that stress the Britisher's practicality and absolute willingness to sacrifice anything, including his own obsessions, for his country. Churchill's old- fashioned sense of the world surfaces repeatedly in relation to ideas and people (notably, De Gaulle, in a piece by Douglas Johnson), but the point emerges throughout that with Churchill's stubborn mind-set came a realistic, flexible acceptance of life that stood England in good stead. Lacking an essay on Churchill the writer; still, a solid bet for anyone concerned with 20th-century history.

Pub Date: March 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-393-03409-7

Page Count: 517

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993

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NIGHT

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. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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