A fresh, welcome view of two much-revered leaders.
An engrossing “comparative biography” of two presidents who remain enduringly popular.
Veteran political journalist Farris (Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race but Changed the Nation, 2011, etc.) recounts the striking, sometimes-surprising similarities between John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) and Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) and their presidencies. In a smooth, well-written chronological narrative, the author explores and compares each stage of their lives, seeking to explain the continuing appeal of these disparate men, both of whom are frequently ranked in polls as being among the great presidents. Although one was a Democrat and the other a Republican, both are remembered as handsome, charismatic, vigorous men of ideas who set the bar (the “Kennedy aura,” the “Reagan mantle”) for the qualities sought in a presidential candidate. Both were shot (and became beloved), shared Irish heritage, had rakish fathers and pious mothers, loved books, felt antipathy toward communism, exuded sex appeal that bolstered their political appeal, dealt serenely with crises, and shared a weakness for cloak-and-dagger behavior that ended badly (the Bay of Pigs, the Iran-Contra Affair). Kennedy was “America’s first ‘movie-star president,’ ” and Reagan, “the first movie star to become president.” Both did more than any other president to ally Washington, D.C., and Hollywood, and both used the actor’s trick of playing the persona they had developed for themselves. Starting out as reserved boys, they “engaged in lifelong reinventions of themselves, working to form themselves into the men they wished to be, the masculine, rugged, charming presidents they became.” Farris covers the major issues in both presidencies, and he speculates that neither man could win his party’s nomination for the presidency today. Having governed during years of Cold War clarity, they would fare poorly as presidents in a current climate marked by both political divisiveness and the murkiness of the war on terrorism.
A fresh, welcome view of two much-revered leaders.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7627-8144-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
