A proficient, readable life, though McGrath does not convincingly explain why a new biography on Monroe is necessary now.
The life of “the last Founding Father to hold the presidency.”
In this deliberative take on Monroe (1758-1831), McGrath, a two-time winner of the Commodore John Barry Book Award, mines the Revolutionary and post-1812 eras, concentrating on Monroe’s two-term presidency. A mentee of Thomas Jefferson and Revolutionary War hero in his home state of Virginia, Monroe served as a delegate on the Continental Congress and notably voted against the ratification of the Constitution. He was partly embroiled in the revelation of Alexander Hamilton’s being blackmailed for his affair with Maria Reynolds—did Monroe reveal it to Jefferson? The bad blood would nearly cause them to fight a duel a few years later. As the author shows, Monroe certainly helped stoke the political animosity between Jefferson’s supporters and Hamilton’s Federalists. Serving as George Washington’s ambassador to France when the mood in Paris was still dangerously revolutionary, Monroe was recalled due to his handling of the Jay Treaty, and his veneration of Washington was deeply shaken. McGrath follows Monroe from his time as governor of Virginia to his role as Jefferson’s envoy in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase. Later, he served as James Madison’s secretary of state and secretary of war, at the same time, while war with Britain raged. As president, he was able to defuse political tensions between the parties, and the Federalists were neutralized. Under his tenure, “he sought an Indian policy that would please both white and Native Americans, and came up woefully short,” and he freed only one of his more than 200 slaves. McGrath, whose wide-ranging research is evident from the extensive list of primary sources, considers Monroe's legacy as “put[ting] his country on the world stage, for better and worse, for all time.” It’s a sturdy, straightforward text that will appeal to fans of presidential biographies, if not general readers.
A proficient, readable life, though McGrath does not convincingly explain why a new biography on Monroe is necessary now.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-451-47726-2
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
© Copyright 2026 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.
