A crisply written but not entirely original retelling of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and historian Horwitz returns to the Civil War era (A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, 2008, etc.) and John Brown’s infamous raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in what is now West Virginia. The author depicts a morally upright abolitionist deeply committed to his cause but also well known for his “fixedness,” a rigid stubbornness that could be a source of strength but was equally a source of weakness. Brown rose to notoriety on the basis of his violent abolitionist crusades in Bloody Kansas, but he had larger plans in mind; he imagined his raid would set in motion slave uprisings that would allow him to command a righteous army of liberation. Grand dreams gave way to grim reality soon after he set his scheme in motion in October 1859 with a small but loyal band of white and black followers. Soon Brown’s men were overrun, and those who were not killed or who did not manage to escape faced the gallows. Among this group was Brown himself, whose hanging represented just retribution in the minds of many detractors, especially whites in the South, but served as equally apt martyrdom in the eyes of his supporters. Though the author’s archival sleuthing pays off with a rich narrative, the book is one of many on the subject to appear in recent years, most notably David S. Reynolds’ John Brown, Abolitionist (2005). Horwitz is a fine writer, but the narrative lacks deep historical analysis. Lucid and compelling but hardly groundbreaking.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9153-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
A wide-angle saga that adds a chapter long missing from official and traditional histories of WW II's Pacific theater: the story of the torments endured by Allied military personnel captured when Japanese forces overran Greater East Asia. Drawing on interviews with survivors of the Japanese prison camps as well as archival sources, Daws (A Dream of Islands, 1980, etc.) effectively combines the experiences of individual American, Australian, British, and Dutch POWs with a panoramic perspective. He probes why the death rate among the more than 140,000 men interned by the Japanese reached 27% (as against but 4% for military prisoners of the Germans). By the author's painstakingly documented account, the causes were legion: inhuman living conditions, starvation diets, an almost complete lack of medical care, constant beatings by brutish guards whose (heartily reciprocated) racial hatred of whites often led to summary executions, forced labor on construction projects like the Burma- Siam railroad, and workaday atrocities. Thousands more POWs perished when the ships transporting them from the fetid jungles of conquered lands to Japan were blown out of the water by Allied aircraft or submarines. Daws provides a start-to-finish narrative, tracking the battered veterans of Bataan, Java, Midway, Singapore, and other campaigns before, during, and after their captivity. While he devotes considerable attention to group bonding, scavenging, and the other stratagems it took to stay alive behind the wire, Daws doesn't neglect the surprisingly cool receptions accorded repatriated POWs. Indeed, he reports, there are precious few memorials to Allied soldiers who died in Asian camps, let alone tributes to the brutalized, sometimes bestialized, survivors condemned to make peace with their freedom after VJ day. Overdue witness, eloquent and harrowing. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11812-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
An intriguing but uneven essay on the enduring influence and image of Malcolm X, by the author of Reflecting Black (not reviewed). Dyson (Communications Studies/Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) prefaces his book with an arresting anecdote about leading a Malcolm X seminar at Brown University, where he publicly scolded black male students who imposed a ``racial litmus test'' to claim for themselves exclusive rights to Malcom's legacy (i.e., ``because I'm black, poor, male and angry, I understand him better than you''). Had Dyson drawn more frequently on classroom experiences, this book might have been energized. He first briefly sketches Malcolm's life and thought (avoiding lionization by noting his harsh attitudes toward women) and the complexity of his political evolution away from the Nation of Islam and black nationalism. Next comes a long assessment of the ``uncritical celebration and vicious criticism'' that mark so many books on Malcolm; Dyson identifies ``four Malcolms'' that emerge from these assessments: hero/saint; public moralist; victim and vehicle of psychohistorical forces; and revolutionary socialist. He then analyzes Malcolm's role in the resurgence of black nationalism, noting that his defiance has been adopted by rappers and other disaffected black youth. However, while calling for a ``new progressive black politics,'' Dyson doesn't analyze the role of the Nation of Islam or of black leaders like the Rev. Al Sharpton on the contemporary black political scene. His next chapter, on masculinity in 1990s black film, strays somewhat from his subject; more interesting is his take on Spike Lee's Malcolm X, which Dyson considers hagiographic but also ``often impressive...richly textured and subtly nuanced.'' The book concludes with a heartfelt meditation on how to make the best use of Malcolm's legacy. Dyson calls for a more complex debate on the state of black males, suggesting that Malcolm's message of self- discipline and self-love might be redemptive. Not as rich as Joe Wood's collection, Malcolm X: In Our Own Image (not reviewed), but useful for serious students.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-19-509235-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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