Engrossing corporate history of the Manhattan-based Coudert Brothers—the prototype of today's far-flung international law firms. Coudert Brothers began as an anomaly: a New York law firm with an international practice founded at a time (1857) of American provincialism and isolation, and composed of devout Catholics in a predominantly Protestant country with widespread anti-Catholic sentiment. Still, Coudert Brothers thrived and even achieved prominence representing Spanish and French corporate and individual clients. The original Coudert brothers (Frederic RenÇ, Charles, and Louis Leonce) were sons of Charles Coudert, a Bonapartist who escaped a Bourbon prison to flee to New York in 1822. While thoroughly American in many ways—Frederic RenÇ even became an important leader in the New York State Democratic party—the Coudert sons were also fluent in French and Spanish, and had a sensitivity to ÇmigrÇ communities, traits leading to their quickly developing a successful practice in the New York and federal courts in admiralty, estates, and general civil litigation. Veenswijk describes Frederic RenÇ's participation in several important international arbitrations, including an unsuccessful attempt by the US government to condemn British exploitation of Siberian seals, and its mediation of a border dispute between Britain and Venezuela. By the 1890's, Coudert Brothers was a ``giant among law firms'' and a family business with continuity; on the death of Charles Coudert, Jr., in 1897 and Frederic RenÇ in 1903, foster brother Paul Fuller and Frederic RenÇ, Jr., assumed the mantle. Veenswijk describes the explosive growth of the firm under Frederic, Jr., and his son, Alexis Coudert. While law practice changed dramatically in the century that followed—by Alexis' death in 1980, the practice of law was a high-pressure, round-the-clock business—Veenswijk shows that the firm's humane, civilized character, excellence in international law practice, and devotion to quality survived. An absorbing history of one of America's great law firms.
Pub Date: April 7, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-93585-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of...
Known for his self-deprecating wit and the harmlessly eccentric antics of his family, Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000, etc.) can also pinch until it hurts in this collection of autobiographical vignettes.
Once again we are treated to the author’s gift for deadpan humor, especially when poking fun at his family and neighbors. He draws some of the material from his youth, like the portrait of the folks across the street who didn’t own a TV (“What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone?” he wonders) and went trick-or-treating on November first. Or the story of the time his mother, after a fifth snow day in a row, chucked all the Sedaris kids out the door and locked it. To get back in, the older kids devised a plan wherein the youngest, affection-hungry Tiffany, would be hit by a car: “Her eagerness to please is absolute and naked. When we ask her to lie in the middle of the street, her only question was ‘Where?’ ” Some of the tales cover more recent incidents, such as his sister’s retrieval of a turkey from a garbage can; when Sedaris beards her about it, she responds, “Listen to you. If it didn’t come from Balducci’s, if it wasn’t raised on polenta and wild baby acorns, it has to be dangerous.” But family members’ square-peggedness is more than a little pathetic, and the fact that they are fodder for his stories doesn’t sit easy with Sedaris. He’ll quip, “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow—it’s not like you're going to do anything with it,” as guilt pokes its nose around the corner of the page. Then he’ll hitch himself up and lacerate them once again, but not without affection even when the sting is strongest. Besides, his favorite target is himself: his obsessive-compulsiveness and his own membership in this company of oddfellows.
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-14346-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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