by Seymour Morris Jr. ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2017
A timely, amusing, and occasionally eye-opening exercise.
On the theory that experience is the best predictor of future performance, Morris (Supreme Commander: MacArthur’s Triumph in Japan, 2014, etc.) examines and evaluates, as any hiring committee might, the resumes of 15 men, all past applicants for the job of president.
To judge the fitness for the Oval Office of figures as towering as Washington and Lincoln, as dubious as William Randolph Hearst, and as little remembered as William Henry Harrison, the author uses four criteria: “accomplishments,” “intangibles,” “judgment,” and “overall” (a summary of all the information known about the candidate). Notwithstanding the intentional diversity of his list, a couple “candidates” appear out of place: the otherwise estimable Gen. George C. Marshall was never seriously considered for Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president, and Jefferson Davis was elected president, yes, but of the Confederacy. Still, the disagreements readers will have with Morris, his methodology, and his assessments are part of the fun of any exercise like this. As he rates the aspirants, the author turns up interesting little nuggets about each: why Jefferson in 1826 thought DeWitt Clinton was the greatest living American and why Lincoln, too, sought to emulate the father of the Erie Canal; how Ronald Reagan devised his own version of shorthand to deliver his seemingly effortless speeches; why Robert Kennedy and Barry Goldwater were perhaps too hot for the presidency, Herbert Hoover and Samuel Tilden, too cold; how Henry Wallace failed to match self-discipline with his prodigious intellect; why Maine’s Bowdoin College awarded an honorary degree to Jefferson Davis two years before the Civil War; how Wendell Willkie, without ever holding public office, captured the Republican nomination; why the Democrats twice denied their top honor to William McAdoo, the most accomplished treasury secretary since Hamilton. Why wisdom trumps experience, judgment beats sheer hard work, broad intelligence bests narrow brilliance—these considerations, too, figure into Morris’ appraisals.
A timely, amusing, and occasionally eye-opening exercise.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61234-850-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Potomac Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
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