Well researched, wonderfully written, and at times extraordinarily moving. White’s relatively small volume comes closer to...
A thoughtful historical, cultural, and literary meditation on President Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address.
Author and editor of several books examining America’s social and religious history (The Social Gospel, not reviewed, etc.) and dean of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, White is well qualified to analyze Lincoln’s powerful Second Inaugural address—a 701-word speech that took an essentially religious approach to political issues. The author begins by introducing readers to the Civil War’s turbulent closing days: wounded Union soldiers swamp the nation’s capitol; Vice President Andrew Johnson publicly drinks himself into a stupor; John Wilkes Booth observes the proceedings with quiet malevolence. Amid this chaos, White presents Lincoln’s address as a statement that transcends the politics of the day and offers both a diagnosis and a cure for a US to overcome the deep national rift caused by the Civil War. Reflecting on each paragraph of the Second Inaugural separately, he argues that Lincoln ultimately understood the Civil War in religious terms, by recognizing the horrors of slavery and battle as sins requiring a national healing rather than bloodthirsty vengeance against the Confederate states. White reminds us that while the popular American press of the time gave a tepid response to Lincoln’s call for charity for the soon-to-be-defeated South, more visionary members of his audience—like Frederick Douglass, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and others—hailed the speech as an important step toward a true post–Civil War union. This contrast, between the president’s sincere love for the nation and the vengeful hatred that permeated American society in early 1865, effectively illuminates the greatness of Lincoln’s perceptive intellect and formidable character.
Well researched, wonderfully written, and at times extraordinarily moving. White’s relatively small volume comes closer to finding the true spirit of Abraham Lincoln than many of the more celebrated biographies.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2002
ISBN: 0-7432-1298-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2001
An eclectic assortment of women make for an entertaining read.
An exuberant celebration of more than 100 women who shaped the myths and realities of New York City.
In her debut book, journalist Scelfo, who has written for the New York Times and Newsweek, aims to counter histories of New York that focus only on “male political leaders and male activists and male cultural tastemakers.” As the author discovered and shows, the contributions of women have been deeply significant, and she has chosen a copious roster of personalities, gathered under three dozen rubrics, such as “The Caretakers” (pioneering physicians Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, who enacted revolutionary hygienic measures in early-20th-century tenements); “The Loudmouths” (Joan Rivers and Better Midler); and “Wall Street” (brokerage firm founder Victoria Woodhull and miserly investor Hetty Green). With a plethora of women to choose from, Scelfo aimed for representation from musical theater, law enforcement, education, social justice movements, and various professions and organizations. Some of the women are familiar (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for her preservation work; Brooke Astor for her philanthropy), some iconic (Emma Lazarus, in a category of her own as “The Beacon”), and some little-known (artist Hildreth Meière, whose art deco designs can be seen on the south facade of Radio City Music Hall). One odd category is “The Crooks,” which includes several forgettable women who contributed to the city’s “cons and crimes.” The author’s brief, breezy bios reveal quirky facts about each woman, a form better suited to “The In-Crowd” (restaurateur Elaine Kaufman, hardly a crowd), entertainers (Betty Comden, Ethel Waters), and “The Wisecrackers” (Nora Ephron, Tina Fey) than to Susan Sontag, Edith Wharton, and Joan Didion. Nevertheless, the book is lively and fun, with something, no doubt, to pique anyone’s interest. Heald’s blithe illustrations add to the lighthearted mood.
An eclectic assortment of women make for an entertaining read.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58005-653-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
An educational and inspiring biography of seminal American innovators.
A charmingly pared-down life of the “boys” that grounds their dream of flight in decent character and work ethic.
There is a quiet, stoical awe to the accomplishments of these two unprepossessing Ohio brothers in this fluently rendered, skillfully focused study by two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning and two-time National Book Award–winning historian McCullough (The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, 2011, etc.). The author begins with a brief yet lively depiction of the Wright home dynamic: reeling from the death of their mother from tuberculosis in 1889, the three children at home, Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine, had to tend house, as their father, an itinerant preacher, was frequently absent. McCullough highlights the intellectual stimulation that fed these bookish, creative, close-knit siblings. Wilbur was the most gifted, yet his parents’ dreams of Yale fizzled after a hockey accident left the boy with a mangled jaw and broken teeth. The boys first exhibited their mechanical genius in their print shop and then in their bicycle shop, which allowed them the income and space upstairs for machine-shop invention. Dreams of flight were reawakened by reading accounts by Otto Lilienthal and other learned treatises and, specifically, watching how birds flew. Wilbur’s dogged writing to experts such as civil engineer Octave Chanute and the Smithsonian Institute provided advice and response, as others had long been preoccupied by controlled flight. Testing their first experimental glider took the Wrights over several seasons to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to experiment with their “wing warping” methods. There, the strange, isolated locals marveled at these most “workingest boys,” and the brothers continually reworked and repaired at every step. McCullough marvels at their success despite a lack of college education, technical training, “friends in high places” or “financial backers”—they were just boys obsessed by a dream and determined to make it reality.
An educational and inspiring biography of seminal American innovators.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-2874-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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