A brief account by Louis (History/Oxford and Univ. of Texas, Austin), a preeminent historian of the British Empire, of the influence of Leo Amery in shaping British imperialism from the turn of the century to the end of WW II. Amery, though not well known today, was considered the leading British imperialist of his generation, and even a possible prime minister ``had he been half a head taller and his speeches half an hour shorter.'' His most dramatic moment came when, in a debate in the House of Commons early in WW II, he rounded on Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with the words used by Oliver Cromwell to the Long Parliament: ``You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'' But when Churchill became prime minister and appointed Amery secretary of state for India, a series of terrible rows ensued. Amery, though he consistently denigrated Gandhi, was virtually alone among his colleagues in believing that the Indians were capable of managing their own affairs and that they would respond well to British magnanimity. Churchill, by contrast, believed in self-government only for those in the white dominions, and, in Amery's view, knew ``as much of the Indian problem as George III did of the American colonies.'' Louis believes that Amery's greatest achievement was to prepare the way for the transfer of power in India, thereby, ironically for this imperialist, contributing to national independence elsewhere in Asia and eventually in Africa. An interesting if somewhat dry glimpse of a man of ideas fated to see those ideas transformed into something he never envisioned.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-393-03393-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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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