A tremendous book of which the digests made for Life and the necessarily cut excerpts in the New York Times gave no conception. For Winston Churchill shows himself as historian, biographer, dramatist, journalist; important as is the substance of what he records of the years leading up to war, more important for the reader is the color and vigor and originality and fearlessness of his manner of recording. Churchill, the man, comes through- as he does in his broadcasting — as he does on the platform- as he does in his printed speeches — but as he failed to do (for this reader at least) in the slashed copy which ran serially. He makes the years of so-called peace pregnant with meaning (and with frightening parallels today). He shows with almost rhythmic precision the points at which World War II might have been prevented. He proves that democracy unless welded into larger organizations lacks security. He brings constant evidence to indicate the dangers in the counsels of prudence. Britain and France consistently lost ground while Germany rearmed. British "fatuity and fecklessness" made the Manchurian incident, Abyssinia, the occupation of the Rhineland, the results of the Saar plebescite, the betrayal at Munich possible. And yet Churchill avoids direct attack on Chamberlain, simply saying that the fundamental bases of the differences lay between "sweet reasonableness and the mailed fist". By the time Britain was awake to inevitability of war, Germany was in her fourth year of preparation, Britain her first. It was a sad tale of wrong judgments by well-meaning people. Further errors of judgment are indicated in the disdaining of the Russian offer of collaboration, in turning aside Roosevelt's desire for an intergovernmental conference — until it was too late, and the march of time brought the fall of Austria, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium. During the "twilight war" period, after Poland, Churchill again played a part, and records his service as Lord of the Admiralty, his plans- stymied by delay until too late. Vivid pen portraits throughout add immeasurably to the whole.
Pub Date: June 21, 1948
ISBN: 039541055X
Page Count: 756
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1948
Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."
Pub Date: June 18, 1974
ISBN: 0671894412
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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