Hearing today’s leaders proclaim deep religious convictions, especially around election time, readers may feel that they...
Richly satisfying biography of a great humanitarian who was also thoroughly likable.
It took 20 years of struggle by William Wilberforce (1759–1833) before the House of Commons finally voted in 1807 to abolish the slave trade, observes former British Conservative Party leader Hague (William Pitt the Younger, 2005). Great parliamentary figures from William Pitt to Charles James Fox loved Wilberforce for his intelligence, wit, warmth and political acumen, even when they did not share his fervent religious convictions. Son of a rich merchant, he entered Parliament in 1780 and in 1785 converted to Evangelicalism, an intense movement that believed Christian principles applied to all areas of life, public as well as private. When Wilberforce decided in 1787 to oppose the slave trade, he joined a tiny group of religious advocates; most Englishmen were indifferent. The abolitionists launched the first modern, issue-oriented PR campaign with a torrent of speeches, rallies, pamphlets and sermons, and within a few years almost everyone had an opinion about slavery. Parliamentary opponents, who claimed that abolishing the trade would impoverish Britain, were on the defensive when disaster struck. The French Revolution threw Europe into turmoil; its armies seemed invincible, and its defenders denounced slavery, tainting the abolitionist cause in patriotic Britons’ eyes. Prime Minister Pitt, who was against the slave trade, turned his attention to national defense. Wilberforce became a voice in the wilderness, repeatedly introducing his antislavery bill, eloquently defending it and watching it fail. But the passage of years rendered the issue less controversial, and persistence gradually weakened the opposition. By 1807, even the House of Lords did not object, and Parliament overwhelmingly approved the Abolition Act. Hague paints a dynamic picture of Wilberforce as a man obsessed with his Christian obligations who continually excoriated himself for falling short.
Hearing today’s leaders proclaim deep religious convictions, especially around election time, readers may feel that they don’t make Christians like they used to.Pub Date: June 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-101267-1
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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