An informative, comprehensive, easy to read biography of the great and good chief justice who, during the mid-20th century, changed the visage of American law, by Cray (General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman, 1990, etc.). Light on legal analysis, this is a serviceable supplement for those already familiar with the man, and an accessible introduction for those unacquainted with the work of Earl Warren. The imminency of the next century presents a particularly timely hour to remember and reassess the man who, as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 through 1969, led a reform not simply of American law but of American social morality. As Cray aptly notes, ``for millions of Americans, the chief justice had come to embody the promise of a nation of truly equal peoples.'' Cray provides a detailed account of Warren's life as family man, lawyer, politician, reform-minded district attorney, attorney general of California, progressive three-term governor of California, and, finally, chief justice. He does not overlook Warren's flaws: As attorney general of California he supervised the internment of Japanese-Americans in that state during WW II. Appropriately, Cray devotes chapters to the pivotal rulings of the ``Warren Court,'' including the school desegregation decisions, protection against coerced confessions and unreasonable searches by the police, the ban on government-sponsored prayer in public schools, and the right of privacy. The passing of the Warren era brought a new Supreme Court, less sensitive to individual rights and substantially less suspicious of the propensity of government to misuse its power. In contrast, Cray's thorough and respectful account reminds us of how one person's courage, integrity, and vision helped fulfill the Constitution's promise of liberty and dignity. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-80852-8
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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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