To remedy a glaring neglect in their American Heritage Series, general editors Leonard Levy and Alfred Young gave the inimitable Buckley a loose rein to gather together his version of the best of twentieth century American conservative thought. Buckley's introduction, sober, cogent, of a pungency well below the Vidal debate heights, centers around the experiences of National Review and "their bearing, by the processes of exclusion, on a workable definition of contemporary conservatism." (The featured excludees: Avn Rand, Dr. Murray Rothbard and "his merry anarchists," Robert Welch and fellow Birchers, and dedicated atheists.) With a deliberate bias for the most current thinkers and an eclectic sensibility for attitudes and tones which are quintessentially conservative, Buckley "corrals into a single volume" diverse contributions by conservatives arch and archetypal on the historical and intellectual bases of American conservative thought, the limitations of the state, contemporary challenges to the social order, social science and the nature of progress, and the spiritual crises of Western culture and of conservatives resisting the twentieth century. Pieces range from the broadly analytical (like Gary Wills' "The Convenient State") to the issue-oriented (e.g., Ernest van den Haag's "Race: Claims, Rights and Prospects") to the poetical-devotional (Frederick D. Wilhelmsen's "Christmas in Christendom"). Buckley's selections and section prefaces reflect his individual dream talking, an asset insofar as this frames the parts into a cohesive (though pluralistic) personal vision, but a liability in a collection for a series intended to be standard and authoritative.
Pub Date: March 1, 1970
ISBN: 0672512408
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1970
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
