A wide-ranging memoir of an active and momentous life.
A nonagenarian inventor and operative recounts a dramatic life.
In this debut memoir, co-written with Prodger (Luftwaffe vs. RAF, 1998, etc.), Cellini leads readers through the globe-spanning series of adventures that made up his life. Born in New York and raised in Italy, Cellini was something of a juvenile delinquent before being drafted into the Italian army. He soon deserted and joined a partisan unit, taking part in their guerilla warfare until Italy was liberated. He then went to work for the Office of Strategic Services, helping to fight the black market that arose during World War II while also taking part in illicit transactions of his own. After the war, Cellini returned to the United States, accompanied by his cousin Franci, whom he married soon after arriving. As he moved from one factory job to another, his innate mechanical aptitude allowed him to create inventions and develop improvements, and Cellini ended up with more than a dozen patents to his name. He also formed connections around the world, leading him to work for the Nicaraguan government in the 1970s, carry out negotiations with Italian organized crime in the ’80s, and design a gun stabilizer for the U.S. military. The book is illustrated with both historical photographs and contemporary images. The author’s exploits sometimes verge on the picaresque, but the reader is always left with a clear sense of the danger Cellini often found himself facing, and even in the book’s most intimate scenes, violence is never far away. Cellini and Prodger have an eye for the small moments that make up this wide-ranging narrative (“Franci has left them alone with their grappa and their memories but with her impeccable sense of timing she recognizes the need to interrupt with espresso”), and although Cellini’s recollections make up the bulk of the story, it is also well-researched, with plenty of substantiating detail and further information about the many well-known figures he encountered. Cellini tells a fascinating story and keeps the reader enthralled and engaged despite the book’s length.
A wide-ranging memoir of an active and momentous life.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943492-38-1
Page Count: 558
Publisher: ELM Grove Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Freelance journalist Shear arrestingly reconstructs a notably bad bargain the US struck with Japan during a period when, despite an immense trade deficit, Washington was willing to pay almost any price to keep the island nation on its side in the Cold War. Drawing on interviews with key players, a wealth of government documents, and contemporary news reports, Shear offers a tellingly detailed, chronological account of how Japan, after almost a decade of effort dating back to the early 1980s, largely got its way on the co-development of the FS-X, an experimental support fighter plane, for the country's militia-like defense forces. The resultant program, the author argues, could give Japan the advanced technology and know-how it needs to become a world-class competitor in aerospace/avionics markets long dominated by American suppliers like Boeing, General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas. While his worst-case scenario—that Japan will snatch a sizeable chunk of this crucial export business—remains to be proved, Shear does a fine job of explaining how the steely resolve of career bureaucrats and intra-agency conflicts can influence, even shape or deform, the policy judgments of elected legislators. He also contrasts the patient, end-in-view nationalism of Dai Nihon's single-minded mandarins with the tactical frenzies of US pols who, though not unmindful of economic consequences, tend to favor expedient solutions to epidemic problems. Covered as well are the commercial implications for American industry, whose decisive edge in state- of-the-art software may have been squandered in the cause of a patron/protÇgÇ alliance whose rationale has long since been overtaken by events. A cautionary tale that goes a long way toward clarifying why ``East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.'' (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-47353-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.
Lavishly illustrated examination of the theory of biological self-organization—territory unfamiliar to most.
The theory of self-organization is an attempt to answer the continuing and ancient question of how the organism develops from a solitary fertilized egg to achieve its final form in maturity. Pivar believes that biology as a discipline has no overarching theoretical principle to explain the process of ontological development. He begins with a detailed description of the tensile strength of the toroidal sphere and how that funnel bi-layer shape is an ideal flexible vessel designed to facilitate the progression from single cell to full-fledged organism. He posits that the specific pattern of development of the species is already encoded at the cellular level and elaborated through physical and chemical dynamic processes. While the genome can specify certain traits of the animal, it cannot account for the process of the developmental sequence of the emerging biological form. In a similar vein, he rejects the principle of random mutation or natural selection precisely because these Darwinian concepts stress the crucial input of the environment in promoting adaptive evolutionary change along a continuum. He describes and illustrates the developmental sequence of flora and fauna from the basic toroidal sphere, stating that every life form grows from the same hypothesized point of origin as the inner layer undergoes continuous embryological transformation that is specific to each animal, flower or insect. The presentation of the biological self-organization theory, unorthodox at best since it minimizes accepted doctrines in biology, is highly disorganized. By immediately discussing and defining the mechanical properties of the torus and more specifically the toroidal sphere, Pivar is launching the reader into highly unfamiliar–and often disorienting–territory, a situation worsened by liberal use of terminology that is discipline-dependent. It is only in the concluding chapters that the relation of the torus principle to ontological and philological development is clarified.
An intriguing work of new ideas on the cutting edge of biology, though not for the uninitiated.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9749860-0-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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