In a rambling but informative memoir, the former chancellor of West Germany and ex-mayor of Berlin details his substantial role in the politics of postwar Europe. With its original German edition published in 1989, just prior to reunification, Brandt's account—though more comprehensive than his People and Politics (1978)—loses force given the subsequent transformation of his homeland, even though a preface and postscript have been added to acknowledge the changes. After working tirelessly for the Social Democrats as an observer and journalist while exiled in Scandinavia during the Nazi period, Brandt returned to West Berlin in 1948, rising steadily through the political ranks to become mayor in 1957, foreign minister in 1966, and, ultimately, West Germany's chancellor in 1969. Brandt also remained chairman of the Social Democrats until 1987—despite being forced to resign as head of state in a 1974 spy scandal. That scandal and other historical highlights, such as the building of the Berlin Wall, are discussed at length here, with special attention paid to Brandt's extensive dealings with world leaders, and to his development of a pragmatic politics that enabled his country to find its own voice in East-West affairs and to normalize relations with Soviet-controlled East Germany. Covering a broad spectrum of political events in the postwar period, Brandt's perspective as conveyed through anecdotes and analyses is that of a quintessential insider, but it's also that of a man keenly interested in the future of both his divided nation and the whole of Europe. An ambitious, sometimes lively appraisal of foreign policy and postwar politics. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-670-84435-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1992
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
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
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