A clear, concise look at one aspect of Lincoln, the man and the president.
Lincoln scholar Guelzo (Civil War Era/Gettysburg Coll.; Gettysburg: The Last Invasion, 2013, etc.) explores race in America as an element of African-American history as affected by Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Declaration.
Lincoln condemned slavery politically and economically but never with a mention of the racial aspect. He thought of slaves as being equal but not equal enough for the vote; in fact, he did not favor any equality of civil privilege. He never spoke of slaves as black. He believed in the separation of the races and did not want slavery to be allowed in the new territories because he wanted “them for the homes of free white people.” The author points to Lincoln’s deeper aims. He felt that slaveholders, in their greed for profit, threatened the white man’s charter of freedom, the Declaration of Independence. He saw slavery as an outrage against the law of nature. Self-determination for states was equally wrong, as a mere majority rule cannot reverse natural law. If so, when the majority turns its restrictive power against you, you will be unprotected. Guelzo provides a wonderful section on reparations, pointing out the difficulties of who should sue whom and for what. The author points out that, as only state laws allowed slavery, there is no statutory culpability in federal court. Finally, he delves into Lincoln’s religion. He was not a member of an established church but read and quoted the Bible with ease. He once said, “if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.” The author includes the political achievements of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington’s economic work, and W.E.B. Du Bois’ cultural determination to further illuminate our perceptions of race and responsibility.
A clear, concise look at one aspect of Lincoln, the man and the president.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-674-28611-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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