A must-have in the libraries of those who love this period and/or admire these two iconic historical figures.
An examination of the strong bonds and rewarding exchanges between the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson.
Their friendship was primarily based on correspondence, beginning in 1781. Chaffin (Giant’s Causeway: Frederick Douglass’s Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary, 2014, etc.) capably traces their parallel stories, presenting a wealth of information, personal and historical, not often included in biographies. Stories of Jefferson’s governorship of Virginia, which represented the extent of his Revolutionary War activity after the Declaration of Independence, shows a man wholeheartedly devoted to Virginia. As the author clearly shows, Jefferson had little interest in military matters and generally stayed aloof from the war. Because he was unsure of what a 19-year-old Lafayette could bring to the table, George Washington accepted his offer to serve with great reservations. What Lafayette did have was enormous wealth, royal connections, and, in 1777, a ship loaded with men and materiel. He was determined to emulate his father, who died in the Seven Years’ War, and become a great general. Furthermore, the American fight was a chance for Lafayette—and France—to get revenge for their horrible loss to England in that war. It was not until 1779 that France actually entered the war, bringing the fleet and support that turned the tide of the Revolution. Lafayette welcomed Jefferson’s term in France as minister and (unofficial) consultant to Lafayette and his supporters. At the same time, he opened doors for Jefferson and helped him learn the ways of diplomacy. Lafayette’s strength was in taking a middle road, protecting the king while aiming for something between the U.S. Constitution and Britain’s arrangement by which the monarch and subject united into a single polity. Sifting through mountains of research material in both the U.S. and France, Chaffin has emerged with a text packed with facts and insights into both men as well as the tumultuous times in which they lived.
A must-have in the libraries of those who love this period and/or admire these two iconic historical figures.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-11372-6
Page Count: 528
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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
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