A rare gift for vision, a sense of drama, a genius for the right word, an imaginative sense of people and story are here applied to the beginnings of a great people. Winston Churchill was endowed with a sense of history- and this is an ambitious project into which he has poured his great gifts. 'Begun in 1939, now finished, to be issued in four volumes over the next three years, this will be for the average reader the definitive history; for the student an inspiration for further study. For Sir Winston makes even his earliest period, in the dawn of the island's checkered history, seem alive. One goes through successive invasions, conquests, struggles for power with an awareness of the contribution each invader, each conqueror made to the building of a nation. Romans, Danes, Normans, each in turn became part of the life stream. Men advanced the island's development- or threw it back for long periods. Great figures and events took place on the stage of history. The things that characterize the English speaking race today put down roots that survived. Churchill does not hesitate to illumine the past through contrast and comparison with the present. He makes his story a living, growing thing. His human beings stand out against their times- good and evil as they may be. He reinterprets old legends, retaining much we learned in childhood, but throwing new light upon it. Exciting and revealing reading, this provides the background we need for other reading-fact and fiction, and leaves us with eager anticipation for the volumes to come.
Pub Date: April 23, 1956
ISBN: 0304341010
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1956
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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