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UNPRECEDENTED POWER

Name: UNPRECEDENTED POWER
Author: Steven Fenberg
ISBN: 978-1-60344-434-7

JESSE JONES, CAPITALISM, AND THE COMMON GOOD

by Steven Fenberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2011

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Although his monumental contribution to the national welfare is largely forgotten today, Jesse Jones (1874–1956) was widely considered to be one of the most powerful men in America—second only to FDR—during the years of the Great Depression and World War II.

Fenberg—an officer for the Houston Endowment and the producer and writer of the Emmy Award–winning documentary “Brother Can You Spare a Billion: The Story of Jesse H. Jones”—chronicles how Jones played a central role in the development of Houston into a major commercial and financial center, before moving to Washington D.C. to head the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and its many spinoff agencies. The author locates his work on the national scene within the broader context of what he views as the successes of the New Deal. As a leading Texas Democrat, Jones came to the attention of Woodrow Wilson and was given an important role in coordinating international-relief efforts along with Herbert Hoover. Upon assuming office, Roosevelt chose Jones to head the RFC, which rapidly morphed into a leading institution of the New Deal, with chief responsibility for getting the economy back on track. By 1934, Jones faced problems similar to issues today. Despite the massive infusion of capital into failing banks to increase their liquidity, credit to industry remained largely frozen. Jones then sought and received authority to make loans directly to credit-worthy businesses, both large and small, and began financing national infrastructure development. Jones warned against balancing the budget by cutting back on New Deal stimulus and relief efforts, and his views were borne out in the 1937 recession. During WWII, the RFC, under his direction, played a major role in the reconversion of American factories, the development of synthetics such as rubber and the maintenance of an international supply line where possible. A somewhat-forgotten page of U.S. history that holds enormous relevance today.

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-60344-434-7

Page Count: 616

Publisher: Texas A&M Univ.

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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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GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)