Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone.
Everitt (The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World’s Greatest Civilization, 2016, etc.) shows us the genius of Alexander (356-323 B.C.E.) in a biography that reads as easily as a novel.
In order to provide a full picture of this fascinating figure, the author seamlessly weaves in comments from friends and foes alike, including Demosthenes and Aristotle. Alexander was driven to conquer the impossible, whether it was fording a river or driving his army to India’s “river ocean” to see the “world’s edge.” From the strong influence of his mother, Olympias, and father, Philip, who shifted the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean, he received a Greek education and the strength to take over the world. Philip was not cruel but certainly ruthless as he became leader of all Greece, exhibiting how self-government by the defeated could minimize expenses. After Philip’s murder (with lots of suspects), the task of invading Persia fell to Alexander. He inherited a large, disciplined army, a wealthy empire, and Philip’s military genius, allowing him to quell uprisings. He had no personal ambition but delighted in danger; he was audacious to the point of lunatic courage; he was devoted to his friends, respectful of enemies. Alexander’s masterful engineers, artillery, and siege engines, along with his incredible luck, helped as he defeated the Persians time and again. He won the day against the Persians at the Granicus, which made him the leader of Asia Minor. Darius III escaped not once but twice, leading Alexander further into unknown territory. Moving into India, Alexander respected the different cultures and rejected racism, but he alternated chivalry with ferocity. Wartime massacres and total destruction of Thebes, Tyre, and Persepolis were cases of cruel necessity rather than gratuitous cruelty. Celebrations could turn into drunken quarrels and turned his men’s respect into fear as they longed for home. Everitt has a wealth of anecdotes and two millennia of histories to work with, and he delivers and interprets them flawlessly.
Nearly unparalleled insight into the period and the man make this a story for everyone.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-425-28652-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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
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
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