Stewart’s lively character sketches employ sprightly prose and impeccable research.
A fond portrait of the mild-mannered Virginian and implacable advocate for the young American government.
Historian and novelist Stewart (The Lincoln Deception, 2013, etc.) offers a pertinent lesson on Madison’s ability to forge working bonds with other founding members of the new American government, even if they did not always see eye to eye. Discreet, generous and nonegotistical, unlike others who hammered out the documents that framed the new government, Madison refused to take credit, rather conceding the “work of many hands and many heads” in the forging of the Constitution. Small and soft-spoken, he was overshadowed by the more dynamic personalities of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Monroe, yet the complement of their respective qualities resulted in brilliant working relationships during the course of Madison’s political career. Hamilton and Madison, both in their 30s, recognized that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate for managing the new nation and had to be replaced by a stronger national government. Their energy as “impatient young men” galvanized the other delegates in Philadelphia over “framing a system which we wish to last for ages,” while their dozens of newspaper essays (written with John Jay) explaining the Constitutional structure became the incomparable work of political theory, The Federalist Papers. Madison cleverly used the power and prestige of Gen. Washington in consolidating attendance at the Convention and winning votes for the Bill of Rights, and the two largely struck the deal to build a new capital on the Potomac. In Jefferson, Madison found an intellectual kindred spirit and lifelong friend. Monroe served in Jefferson’s and Madison’s administrations and navigated the Louisiana Purchase and renewed hostility with Britain. Finally, the woman and helpmate Madison found late in life, Dolley, evolved into a winning “Lady Presidentess” and devoted caretaker in his dotage at Montpelier.
Stewart’s lively character sketches employ sprightly prose and impeccable research.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1451688580
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
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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