Sharply focused, wonderfully engaging documentation of the “ruins” of this American Ozymandias.
Examination of the shocking fall of the richest man in Revolutionary America.
Smith (History/Virginia Commonwealth Univ.) wisely focuses on the dizzying last few years of Robert Morris’ (1734-1806) life, from the height of his wealth and free-wheeling speculation in 1793, when he began planning an extravagant mansion for himself and his family in Philadelphia, to his incarceration in debtors prison six years later and penurious death in 1806. How could this disgrace have happened to the nation’s first “superintendent of finance,” appointed unanimously by Congress in 1781? Morris was an English immigrant who worked his way up as a merchant, becoming a partner in the trading firm Willing, Morris and Company at age 21. He was elected to Pennsylvania’s state assembly (and later, senate), and he was instrumental in building the republic’s navy, equipping the army, funding the states, stabilizing the currency, paying the government’s debts and establishing the Bank of North America. These and many other exalted tasks won him lifelong friendships with the leading Founding Fathers, such as George Washington, who dined with him in jail. A risk-taker with “an appetite for action,” Morris fell into the lure of land speculation, as many other leaders did, buying up millions of acres of land in upstate New York, as well as floating numerous industrial ventures. The clincher was his relationship with engineer and architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who had designed the layout of the new capital, Washington, D.C., before resigning in a sulk. Together, the two allowed their overweening ambition and sense of persecution to propel the erection of a grand mansion on an entire block of Philadelphia purchased by Morris. It was a gorgeous “folly,” doomed to incompletion and eventual dismantlement by the resentment of the republican masses.
Sharply focused, wonderfully engaging documentation of the “ruins” of this American Ozymandias.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-300-19604-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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