THE LIE THAT IS LINCOLN

Name: THE LIE THAT IS LINCOLN
Author: Stephen Miklosik
ISBN: 978-1469156415

by Stephen Miklosik Stephen Miklosik ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 2012

Miklosik, a retired anesthesiologist, self-confessed “curmudgeon” and proud contrarian, claims that being born in Canada to...

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An armchair historian challenges commonly held views about the American Civil War in a series of incendiary essays.

Miklosik, a retired anesthesiologist, self-confessed “curmudgeon” and proud contrarian, claims that being born in Canada to Slovak immigrants makes him an “impartial observer” to what he sees as the “kiss-ass” canonization of “Saint Abraham Lincoln.” He admits the man spoke well but places him alongside Genghis Khan and Pol Pot in the pantheon of the “world’s cruelest dictators.” He quotes Thomas Paine and John Locke and wonders if Lincoln ever read their work. To Miklosik, “it is mind-boggling” that more than a million “civilized, advanced young men” were sacrificed “just to free from bondage 4,000,000 illiterate, backward savages” because our sixteenth president lacked “patience.” Miklosik considers slavery an “odious industry” but justifies its history by quoting the Old Testament, where “at worst,” it was seen as an “event of minor reprehensibility.” God clearly proscribed, “Thou shall not kill,” but he said nothing about owning slaves. Miklosik claims abolitionists (under the sway of hypocritical Quakers) elevated it into an “abomination”—and an excuse for Northern aggression. To this, the author adds the usual arguments concerning states’ rights, misguided government and the corruption of absolute power. He portrays the South as “agrarian, aristocratic” and the North as “capitalistic, industrial.” This tendency to generalize upends many of the author’s arguments. While he bemoans the bias of “sycophantic” historians, his “jaundiced and cynical views of history” force him into his own dogmatic corner. It might be easy to dismiss a writer who thinks Uncle Tom’s Cabin beats any “propaganda” Goebbels created for Hitler. But no one will deny the man his passion. What the author calls “iconoclastic,” many readers might find over-the-top and offensive.

Pub Date: May 9, 2012

ISBN: 978-1469156415

Page Count: 302

Publisher: Xlibris

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

HISTORY | UNITED STATES

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NIGHT

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...

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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.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

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

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY

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NIGHT
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel

A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN TWELVE SHIPWRECKS

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A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN TWELVE SHIPWRECKS

by David Gibbins ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024

Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.

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A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.

There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.

Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.