A valuable biography of an important figure in a distant, violent, barely comprehensible era.
Biography of William Marshal (1146-1219), Earl of Pembroke, the epitome of medieval chivalry, who battled for great kings (Henry II, Richard the Lionheart) and the not-so-great (Henry III).
Marshal’s reputation stems from a fulsome epic poem commissioned after his death (“In its pages William almost became the living embodiment of the mythical Arthurian knight, Lancelot”), which thrilled scholars when it turned up in 1861. Acknowledging its value as well as its bias—it presented its hero “as the perfect knight”—Asbridge (Medieval History/Univ. of London; The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land, 2010) delivers an intensively researched but lucid portrait of a knight who triumphed in an age much nastier than that of Arthur’s mythical kingdom. Son of a minor noble, Marshal matured in a time when England still ruled much of France. After training in the household of a great Norman magnate, he distinguished himself in tournaments, which were exceedingly popular during the day. These were not the formal jousts that proliferated in later centuries but rather brutal battles between groups of knights whose winners ransomed surviving losers. After serving Eleanor of Aquitaine, Marshal joined the court of her estranged husband, Henry II, where he prospered, fought for but occasionally betrayed Henry and his successors, and ended life as England’s most powerful royal retainer (“guardian of the realm”). Henry II passed much of his reign fighting the French, when he wasn’t fighting one of three ambitious sons anxious to unseat him. Matters did not improve after Henry’s death, so Marshal’s career comes across as a relentless series of intrigues, battles, atrocities, truces quickly broken, internal revolts and treason that often included Marshal for reasons the author must guess because historical evidence is lacking.
A valuable biography of an important figure in a distant, violent, barely comprehensible era.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0062262059
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
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.
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
Well-told and admonitory.
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
