Those with fond memories of Garrett Mattingly’s classic The Armada (1959) will discover an equally enthralling successor.
Historians regularly weigh in on the 1588 sea battle with Spain that assured the survival of a Protestant England, and contemporary readers will certainly enjoy this outstanding contribution.
In Europe during the Reformation, religion remained a matter of life and death, especially as it concerned the clashes between Catholics and Protestants. Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ruled the only large Protestant nation in Europe, the focus of fierce opposition led by the devout Philip II of Spain, a superpower that included Portugal, the Low Countries and much of central Europe. Although bankrupted by the ongoing Dutch rebellion, Philip determined to invade England by sending an immense fleet to the Low Countries to transport an army across the Channel. This was no secret, and Tudor historian Hutchinson (Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII, 2012, etc.) excels in his descriptions of the flow of information, emphasizing England’s pioneering intelligence service, which he recounted in Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (2006). “Reading the letters and dispatches written during those days of national peril,” writes the author, “something approaching a barely controlled panic gripped Elizabeth’s government.” Protestants remained a minority. Catholic noblemen had already led several rebellions; Elizabeth and her ministers feared another in support of the invasion. Readers know how the battle turned out, but they will relish Hutchinson’s intensely detailed account, which belies the usual myths—e.g., Britain’s fleet was not outnumbered; Spain’s naval leadership was competent; Sir Francis Drake did not turn the tide; weather, starvation and disease, not battle, produced almost all the casualties. Following victory, England tried to retaliate, sending a fleet to invade Spain in 1589, a move that proved to be a disaster.
Those with fond memories of Garrett Mattingly’s classic The Armada (1959) will discover an equally enthralling successor.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04712-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist (1900–45) collected his work from WWII in two bestselling volumes, this second published in 1944, a year before Pyle was killed by a sniper’s bullet on Okinawa. In his fine introduction to this new edition, G. Kurt Piehler (History/Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) celebrates Pyle’s “dense, descriptive style” and his unusual feel for the quotidian GI experience—a personal and human side to war left out of reporting on generals and their strategies. Though Piehler’s reminder about wartime censorship seems beside the point, his biographical context—Pyle was escaping a troubled marriage—is valuable. Kirkus, at the time, noted the hoopla over Pyle (Pulitzer, hugely popular syndicated column, BOMC hype) and decided it was all worth it: “the book doesn’t let the reader down.” Pyle, of course, captures “the human qualities” of men in combat, but he also provides “an extraordinary sense of the scope of the European war fronts, the variety of services involved, the men and their officers.” Despite Piehler’s current argument that Pyle ignored much of the war (particularly the seamier stuff), Kirkus in 1944 marveled at how much he was able to cover. Back then, we thought, “here’s a book that needs no selling.” Nowadays, a firm push might be needed to renew interest in this classic of modern journalism.
Pub Date: April 26, 2001
ISBN: 0-8032-8768-2
Page Count: 513
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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