Entertaining and likely to teach most readers something new—an especially good read in an election year.
Rating the presidents is a fascinating game. Merry (A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent, 2009) looks at the criteria and invites readers to make their own assessments.
The author—editor of the National Interest and former Washington correspondent for the Wall Street Journal—offers two specific criteria for evaluating presidential success: electoral success and the verdict of historians, as recorded by several polls since 1948, when Arthur Schlesinger Sr. published his pioneering presidential ratings. Merry gives the judgment of the electorate equal if not greater weight than the historians’ opinions. In particular, he argues that serving two terms and being succeeded by a president of the same party is a clear sign of the voters’ approbation. A dozen presidents meet that criterion of success, not all of whom (McKinley and Coolidge, for example) get high marks from historians. Presidential reputations shift with time, as well—e.g., Grant, formerly relegated to the bottom rank because of corruption during his administration, has risen in historians’ estimation after a reevaluation of how he handled Reconstruction. Merry also looks at such factors as presidents’ handling of wars, noting that voters want wars to come to a clean conclusion and to advance the national interest in some definable way; by this standard, Truman (Korea) and LBJ (Vietnam) failed their duty as commanders in chief. Most interesting are the “split decision” presidents, whose second term fell short after a promising beginning—see Eisenhower and Nixon. Not surprisingly, Merry has a fond spot for Polk, who accomplished much in a single term and did not seek a second. On the other hand, his high evaluation of Reagan will not sit well with everyone.
Entertaining and likely to teach most readers something new—an especially good read in an election year.Pub Date: June 26, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2540-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
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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