A biography of the military commander who, in this sound and balanced portrayal, was bound by his training and convictions to win an unwinnable war, ultimately the costliest in US history. Zaffiri (Hamburger Hill, not reviewed), a Vietnam veteran, relates the life of a remarkable general whose career was shattered by his involvement in the Vietnam War. The book opens with perhaps the high point of Westmoreland's professional life: a speech before a joint session of Congress, an honor reserved previously for the likes of Pershing, Eisenhower, and MacArthur. As the applause and adulation fade away, the author dissolves to the general's ancestry and early life. Coming from a southern military family, he forsook the family tradition of attendance at The Citadel to go to West Point. He demonstrated courage and leadership during WW II in North Africa and elsewhere, becoming a hero and stepping on the Army's fast track. He was frustrated by the political nature of the Korean War, in which he also served. Coming to the Pentagon, he became a protÇgÇ of Maxwell Taylor, later JFK's military advisor. This ultimately led to his tenure as commander of MAC-V (Military Assistance Command—Vietnam). The Tet offensive, though in truth a disaster for the Communists, convinced both Congress and the American public that Westmoreland had deceived them about possibilities for success and broke the resolve of the US to prosecute the war. Although he still achieved his long-held dream of becoming Army chief of staff, he would live out his life in the shadow of perceived failure. A gubernatorial run in his native South Carolina and his famous libel suit against CBS round out the story. Based on meticulous research and interviews with many key figures (including Westmoreland himself), the book offers a fair hearing for a man who has been alternately overlooked and maligned by history.
Pub Date: July 26, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11179-3
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1994
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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