Surprisingly fascinating.
Comprehensive history of the 50 extravagant baubles created between 1885 and 1917 as Easter gifts for the Russian royal family.
It was a combination of luck and skill, writes Faber (Stradivari’s Genius, 2005, etc.), that enabled Carl Fabergé, one of many local artisans catering to the turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg aristocracy, to become “Jeweller to the Court” and creator of the elegant eggs synonymous with the prewar gilded era. In 1885, czarina Marie Fedorovna purchased Fabergé cufflinks at a jewelry expo; that same year, Alexander III commissioned the first Fabergé Easter egg for his wife. The czarina was delighted with the exquisite gift, which contained a golden yoke, a miniature imperial crown in diamonds and a ruby pendant. A tradition was born that two generations of czars would maintain for three decades. The eggs displayed astonishing craftsmanship and attention to detail, qualities that became Fabergé hallmarks and resulted in the family-owned firm becoming the largest jewelry supplier in the world. It was their connection to the Romanovs, though, that marked the 50 imperial eggs as tokens of history. The years in which they were given saw ever-increasing strife and tragedy. As Russia devolved into poverty and hurtled toward revolution, the czar’s regime displayed much pomp but little concern for the welfare of his people. The eggs became a symbol of ostentatious wealth with little utilitarian purpose; each year they grew more elaborate and personalized, thus providing a priceless glance into the lives of the doomed royal family. After the abdication of Nicholas II and the subsequent execution of the former czar, his wife and children in 1918, the eggs were seized and dispersed. By 1930, more than a dozen had emerged in the hands of private investors in the West; they have since been bought and sold by a variety of collectors, including Armand Hammer and Malcolm Forbes. In 2004, in a great show of nationalism, Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg purchased Forbes’s entire Fabergé collection for more than $90 million, reinforcing the Fabergé brand and its importance to Russian history.
Surprisingly fascinating.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6550-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not flawless, but one of the best recent analyses of the contemporary woes of American economics and politics.
Remarkably comprehensive and coherent analysis of and prescriptions for America’s contemporary economic malaise by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Smith (Rethinking America, 1995, etc.).
“Over the past three decades,” writes the author, “we have become Two Americas.” We have arrived at a new Gilded Age, where “gross inequality of income and wealth” have become endemic. Such inequality is not simply the result of “impersonal and irresistible market forces,” but of quite deliberate corporate strategies and the public policies that enabled them. Smith sets out on a mission to trace the history of these strategies and policies, which transformed America from a roughly fair society to its current status as a plutocracy. He leaves few stones unturned. CEO culture has moved since the 1970s from a concern for the general well-being of society, including employees, to the single-minded pursuit of personal enrichment and short-term increases in stock prices. During much of the ’70s, CEO pay was roughly 40 times a worker’s pay; today that number is 367. Whether it be through outsourcing and factory closings, corporate reneging on once-promised contributions to employee health and retirement funds, the deregulation of Wall Street and the financial markets, a tax code which favors overwhelmingly the interests of corporate heads and the superrich—all of which Smith examines in fascinating detail—the American middle class has been left floundering. For its part, government has simply become an enabler and partner of the rich, as the rich have turned wealth into political influence and rigid conservative opposition has created the politics of gridlock. What, then, is to be done? Here, Smith’s brilliant analyses turn tepid, as he advocates for “a peaceful political revolution at the grassroots” to realign the priorities of government and the economy but offers only the vaguest of clues as to how this might occur.
Not flawless, but one of the best recent analyses of the contemporary woes of American economics and politics.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6966-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.
Former Dirty Jobs star Rowe serves up a few dozen brief human-interest stories.
Building on his popular podcast, the author “tells some true stories you probably don’t know, about some famous people you probably do.” Some of those stories, he allows, have been subject to correction, just as on his TV show he was “corrected on windmills and oil derricks, coal mines and construction sites, frack tanks, pig farms, slime lines, and lumber mills.” Still, it’s clear that he takes pains to get things right even if he’s not above a few too-obvious groaners, writing about erections (of skyscrapers, that is, and, less elegantly, of pigs) here and Joan Rivers (“the Bonnie Parker of comedy”) there, working the likes of Bob Dylan, William Randolph Hearst, and John Wayne into the discourse. The most charming pieces play on Rowe’s own foibles. In one, he writes of having taken a soft job as a “caretaker”—in quotes—of a country estate with few clear lines of responsibility save, as he reveals, humoring the resident ghost. As the author notes on his website, being a TV host gave him great skills in “talking for long periods without saying anything of substance,” and some of his stories are more filler than compelling narrative. In others, though, he digs deeper, as when he writes of Jason Everman, a rock guitarist who walked away from two spectacularly successful bands (Nirvana and Soundgarden) in order to serve as a special forces operative: “If you thought that Pete Best blew his chance with the Beatles, consider this: the first band Jason bungled sold 30 million records in a single year.” Speaking of rock stars, Rowe does a good job with the oft-repeated matter of Charlie Manson’s brief career as a songwriter: “No one can say if having his song stolen by the Beach Boys pushed Charlie over the edge,” writes the author, but it can’t have helped.
Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982130-85-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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