An even-handed, realistic history that implicitly measures how far the UN has come in achieving the high hopes its founders held when it was created at the end of WW II. With the failure of the League of Nations constantly in mind, the UN sought, in the words of its charter, to save ``future generations from the scourge of war.'' Yet as shown by Meisler, who covers foreign affairs and the UN for the Los Angeles Times, the organization's dream of cooperation vanished almost immediately as it was overshadowed by the onset of the Cold War; indeed, the UN almost foundered before it began because of Western-Soviet deputes over voting procedures. Much of the history here covers the crises that were inevitably colored by the superpowers' confrontation: the creation of Israel, the Korean War, the Suez affair, the Congo, the Cuban missile crisis, the Israeli-Arab Six-Day War, and the Iranian hostage crisis. The organization's Third World members often engaged not in constructive peacekeeping or even the honeyed palaver often associated with diplomats but in hot rhetoric oddly irrelevant to the organization's mission (at the insistence of Arab members, a 1975 UN-sponsored Conference on Women passed a resolution calling for Zionism's elimination). Aside from Dag Hammarskjîld, praised by Meisler for his ``stubborn principle and exquisite tact,'' the superpowers often settled for secretaries- general who turned out to be clumsy (Trygve Lie), colorless (U Thant), or venal (Kurt Waldheim). Even after the Cold War's end raised hope that the organization might finally achieve its promise, it remained mired in ambiguity; successful peacekeeping missions in El Salvador, Haiti, and Cambodia contrasted with misconceived ventures in Somalia and Bosnia. This history could have used more of Meisler's own interviews for a fresh perspective on past events, and the optimistic conclusion is overdrawn. But generally, a clear-eyed view of an organization as victimized by naive hope as by corrosive cynicism. (photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-87113-616-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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