A well-researched history of an egotist who toyed with world affairs.
A close look at a devastating diplomatic failure.
British American biographer and historian Ronald examines two calamitous years in the life of business mogul, serial philanderer, and overbearing patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy (1886-1969), during which he served as America’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s as Europe became engulfed in war. The coveted ambassadorship was a position Kennedy had lobbied for and believed he deserved as a reward for backing Franklin Roosevelt’s election bids in 1932 and 1936. Roosevelt wanted to count on Kennedy’s loyalty—and the 25 million Catholic votes he could bring if the president decided to run for a third term—while at the same time getting the opinionated businessman out of the U.S. Drawing on biographical and archival sources, Ronald portrays the gruff, egotistical Kennedy as spectacularly unsuited to a diplomatic post. Blunt, outspoken, and tactless, he was adept at films and finance but knew little about foreign policy. The author’s detailed, well-populated narrative traces Kennedy’s daily doings, family relationships, self-serving projects, womanizing, and fraught service, in which he repeatedly proved to be an embarrassment, making public statements, for example, without government approval. Quickly, he was “deemed insufferable” by the White House and the State Department. British officials called him “the worst sort of self-promoter.” As German aggression intensified, Kennedy remained staunchly isolationist, partly because he wanted to keep his eldest sons out of combat, partly because of his fascist and antisemitic sympathies. He insisted that war could be averted by making sweeping economic and political concessions, such as letting Germany take over Europe. He backed Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy and loudly insisted that Britain would be roundly defeated. Once Britain entered the conflict, Ronald writes, Kennedy “seemed incapable of understanding that Britain was at war for its very existence.”
A well-researched history of an egotist who toyed with world affairs.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-23872-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Tragedy as well as triumph in this meticulous, fascinating tale of three generations of Churchills.
Churchill as family man.
In addition to being the subject of countless biographies, Churchill published hundreds of articles and more than 40 books of his own. In this detailed, engaging narrative, Ireland demonstrates that there is more to be learned about one of the most written-about political figures in history. Exploring the statesman’s relationship with his son, Randolph, the author begins with Churchill’s own famously unhappy childhood, chronicling his parents’ “almost comically detached method of care.” Churchill overcompensated for his father’s neglect by spoiling his son, a poorly behaved boy who became a profligate student and undisciplined adult. For all his gifts and achievements, Randolph led a chaotic life. In one two-week period in 1939, anxious for an heir lest he be killed in the war, he proposed to eight different women, all of whom turned him down. The ninth, Pamela Digby, accepted, and a year later, she became mother to his son, also named Winston. Shortly after, she was forced to rent out their home and take a job to pay down his gambling debts. On the positive side, Randolph was a gifted extempore speaker, effective journalist, and influential counselor to his father—and, later, his biographer. While recounting their relationship, Ireland draws unforgettable sketches of life in the Churchill circle, much like Erik Larson did in The Splendid and the Vile. For example, the family home at Chartwell required nearly 20 servants, as celebrities, politicians, and other “extraordinary people” came and went on a daily basis. Throughout, Ireland is generous with the bijou details: Churchill hated whistling and banned it. When dining alone, he would sometimes have a place set for his cat. His valet would select his clothes, “even pulling on his socks.” After retiring to Pratt’s club after Parliament ended its evening session, he would sometimes “take over the grill and cook the food himself.”
Tragedy as well as triumph in this meticulous, fascinating tale of three generations of Churchills.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4445-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Hard-edged, tough-minded, and unabashedly opinionated, but a refreshingly frank record of a controversial life.
From African-American economist and author Sowell, a forthright memoir of growing up the hard way in Harlem—without a father, but with an admirable refusal to compromise one’s principles.
As a grown man, Sowell can now discern helpful guideposts (that would later determine his success) in what was an often frightening and uncertain childhood. He is grateful that he left the South too young to be subjected to its pervasive racism, that he was in public school when its education was still excellent, and that he became a professor before affirmative action called into question many black accomplishments. Born in 1929 in North Carolina, he never knew his own father and was adopted soon after his birth by an aunt. He left the South after an idyllic childhood and moved to Harlem with his mother and two older sisters in 1939. There he entered the local public school, and was soon an outstanding, as well as an outspoken, student. The family was proud of his accomplishments, but when he was accepted at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, they objected to the hours he spent studying instead of earning money, and he had to drop out. Drafted into the Marines during the Korean War, he took advantage of the GI bill to finish high school, as well as attend college, graduating from Harvard. The following years—spent teaching at colleges like Cornell or working in Washington while he finished his dissertation—were often rocky. And he describes his run-ins with obstructive bureaucrats, careerist academics, and bigoted racists, encounters sometimes exacerbated by his often-unpopular political opinions. Though Sowell writes movingly of his son who was a late talker, this is not a personal memoir, but rather an account of a philosophical and professional evolution shaped by a lifetime of challenging experiences.
Hard-edged, tough-minded, and unabashedly opinionated, but a refreshingly frank record of a controversial life.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86464-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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