An intriguing appreciation of how the sociocultural significance of the sinking of the Titanic has been shaped to a variety of ends down through the years. In assessing what he deems the contingent and contextual meanings of the resonant maritime disaster, historian Biel, who teaches writing at Harvard, provides only a summary of its details, i.e., that at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, the largest ocean liner ever built struck an iceberg off Newfoundland on her maiden voyage and went down, with the loss of over 1,500 lives. Noting how commentators and interest groups vied energetically to frame the ways in which the great ship's loss would be remembered, the author asserts that the Titanic first functioned as a commodity, the raw material of news stories, books, films, sermons, and even advertising pitches (e.g., by Travelers Insurance); the doomed vessel also has served as the centerpiece of commercial ventures (including at least one video game) and a couple of scientific expeditions. Biel goes on to document how over time the calamity's protean particulars have been employed by advocates as well as opponents of women's suffrage, immigration, advanced technology, mainstream religions, free speech, and other great causes or issues. So far as America's black community was concerned, he reports, the tragedy was an all-white affair and thus—as expressed in folk songs from Huddie Ledbetter (a.k.a. Leadbelly) and others— a source of relief, if not pleasure. Concurrently, the author observes, the Titanic Historical Society has fostered a high level of amateur scholarship, while the successful effort by oceanographer Robert Ballard to locate the sunken wreckage continues to give the catastrophe and its mythic metaphors new leases on life. Indeed, as Biel points out in closing, the ship's multifaceted saga begs for resolution and always resists it. Thought-provoking perspectives on the myriad uses to which one of the world's epic misfortunes has been put. (22 pages b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03965-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
A unique, inspiring story by a member of the Greatest Generation.
A firsthand account of how the Navajo language was used to help defeat the Japanese in World War II.
At the age of 17, Nez (an English name assigned to him in kindergarten) volunteered for the Marines just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Growing up in a traditional Navajo community, he became fluent in English, his second language, in government-run boarding schools. The author writes that he wanted to serve his country and explore “the possibilities and opportunities offered out there in the larger world.” Because he was bilingual, he was one of the original 29 “code talkers” selected to develop a secret, unbreakable code based on the Navajo language, which was to be used for battlefield military communications on the Pacific front. Because the Navajo language is tonal and unwritten, it is extremely difficult for a non-native speaker to learn. The code created an alphabet based on English words such as ant for “A,” which were then translated into its Navajo equivalent. On the battlefield, Navajo code talkers would use voice transmissions over the radio, spoken in Navajo to convey secret information. Nez writes movingly about the hard-fought battles waged by the Marines to recapture Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and others, in which he and his fellow code talkers played a crucial role. He situates his wartime experiences in the context of his life before the war, growing up on a sheep farm, and after when he worked for the VA and raised a family in New Mexico. Although he had hoped to make his family proud of his wartime role, until 1968 the code was classified and he was sworn to silence. He sums up his life “as better than he could ever have expected,” and looks back with pride on the part he played in “a new, triumphant oral and written [Navajo] tradition,” his culture's contribution to victory.
A unique, inspiring story by a member of the Greatest Generation.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-425-24423-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton Caliber
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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