A fluid, much-needed biography of a remarkable man.
The life and times of America’s first professional architect.
Baker (Emerita, History/Goucher Coll.; Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, 2011, etc.) offers up another solid historical biography with this insightful portrait of the early republic’s greatest architect. The last biography of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764-1820) was published more than 60 years ago, and, as the author notes, “little or nothing is remembered of his works.” Baker clearly portrays Latrobe as instrumental in shaping not only the republic’s buildings and physical landscape, but also “American habits and beliefs.” He apprenticed in London at one of the city’s most active architectural practices and was soon designing private homes for the wealthy. Unfortunately, Baker writes, there were also “disturbing signs of Latrobe’s inability to manage his financial affairs,” something that would plague him throughout his life. After he went bankrupt, he sought new opportunities in America’s fledging republic. He designed Virginia’s state penitentiary and the Bank of Philadelphia. In 1803, his friendship with Thomas Jefferson led the president to appoint him “surveyor of public buildings.” Primarily tasked with designing the then-under-construction U.S. Capitol, including the House of Representatives and Senate wings and the Supreme Court’s meeting room, he also designed the main gate of the Washington Navy Yard and the Washington Canal. Although he “abominated” slavery, slaves were used extensively in the construction of Latrobe’s works. Budgetary issues resulted in his termination. While in Pittsburgh, working with Robert Fulton on steamboats, he was called back to Washington to supervise repairs to a Capitol that had been burned by the British during the War of 1812. Again, he was fired over budgetary problems. His final years were spent designing Baltimore’s Basilica, a “technical marvel of the time,” and much-needed waterworks to help New Orleans fight its yellow fever epidemics. Latrobe’s designs, writes the author, “conveyed an inspirational message to his new countrymen about the worthiness of their great experiment.”
A fluid, much-needed biography of a remarkable man.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-069645-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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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