Early in this massive biography, Ambrose makes the ironic statement that, at 25, Nixon was considered to be so honest, scrupulous, and upright that had he opened a used-car lot, his peers would have flocked to buy cars from him. The statement captures the tone of this, the definitive biography of an enigma. Ambrose, whose career as a historian has seemed to gel in recent years as the primary biographer of Eisenhower, captures Nixon as a prisoner of ironies in this first of two volumes that takes us up to the "last press conference" after Nixon's 1962 California gubernatorial defeat. Nixon's rise was meteoric. (Consider the equivalent: a freshman representative entering Congress this year would be elected Vice-President in 1992!) But, as Ambrose shows, this was only typical. Within months of joining any organization, from grade school on, Nixon would so shine that he would be granted the presidency. It was only natural that he should consider the Vice-Presidency and Presidency as plausible career steps. But it wasn't just a matter of brutal ambition. Friends and enemies alike conceded that the man possessed a brilliant political mind. And this, in turn, was fed by a remarkable memory and sheer hard work (Nixon could go days without sleep in preparing for important trips or events). It was unfortunate for him that he had to ride the coattails of Eisenhower, whose feelings for Nixon were fatherly in the best and worst sense of the word. While grooming Nixon to take on the burdens of the Presidency, he never quite considered him mature enough. Nixon's tireless and great service to the Republican Party often irked Eisenhower, who cared not a whit for party affiliation. Ambrose brings out other ironies'. The supposed campaign of vilification against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950, for instance, was actually begun by Douglas, who first tried to besmirch Nixon's voting record! And the conception of Nixon as an extreme right-winger depended too heavily on Nixon's partisan lambasting of Democrats who were "soft on Communism." Ambrose convincingly demonstrates that in domestic policies, Nixon was actually one of the more progressive Republicans of the 1950's, but he had to quell that spirit because of Eisenhower. Nixon's progressivism was particularly apparent in his promotion of black rights. In this regard, Martin Luther King, Jr., actually voted for the Eisenhower ticket in 1956 because of Nixon. Most previous biographies of Nixon have either been admiring political studies or hatchet jobs by obvious enemies. Ambrose rights both of their wrongs and gives us a wonderful preliminary to the final volume, which will chronicle Nixon's resurrection, triumph, and fall. Masterful biography.
Pub Date: April 1, 1987
ISBN: 0671654381
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987
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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