paper 0-8225-9680-6 A biography that highlights Ventura’s controversial gubernatorial campaign; unfortunately, the book spends too much time fawning over Jesse “the Body” and too little time analyzing what’s coming out of “the Mouth” for young readers to truly understand the man. Greenberg (The Haitian Family, 1998, etc.), who assisted Ventura with his column for World Wrestling Federation Magazine, chronicles his subject’s life from his working-class background in Minneapolis, through his career as a Navy SEAL, his wrestling stardom, and his political aspirations. The book fails to offer any opposing views of Ventura’s celebrity or policies, painting Ventura as an environmentalist for supporting Minnesota wetlands as mayor but omitting any mention of how he has weakened environmental prohibitions of jet skis (of which Ventura owns four). The book ends with Ventura’s election, so no mention is made of his comments on the Littleton, Colorado, shootings, nor—of course—of his recent remarks concerning organized religion, depression, etc. Researchers will be better served by current magazine and newspaper articles about the governor than by this unfettered bit of boosterism. (photos, source, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-14)
Pub Date: Dec. 28, 1999
ISBN: 0-8225-4977-8
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
In a splendid retelling of a great story, Ambrose chronicles Lewis and Clark's epic 1803-06 journey across the continent and back. Thomas Jefferson, more than anyone else, helped to effect the dream of a transcontinental US. As noted historian Ambrose (Univ. of New Orleans; D-Day, 1994, etc.) recounts, Jefferson's first great accomplishment in this regard was the Louisiana Purchase. His second was the dispatching of a US Army "Corps of Discovery" under his neighbor and friend, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to travel by land to the Pacific Ocean in search of a waterway to the West. Lewis, partner William Clark, and their 30-man expeditionary force recorded hundreds of species of birds, plants, and animals not previously known to Western science; mapped the interiors of the country; established ties with Indian tribes of the Northern Plains and the Northwest; and set the stage for the exploitation of the western country, particularly in the fur trade. Also, by Ambrose's account, Lewis and Clark's well-meaning ignorance and diplomatic maladroitness set the tone for early American relationships with Native Americans. Despite their close relationships with some Indians, Lewis and Clark persisted in absurd beliefs about them, some of which were subscribed to by Jefferson, as well (e.g., that Indians were descendants of a long-lost tribe of Welshmen). Although the expedition was a great success and fame and fortune followed, Lewis, now drinking heavily and suffering setbacks in love and politics, fell into a deep depression and committed suicide in 1809. The author speculates that he might have considered his great expedition a failure because the land remained unexploited by Americans. A fascinating glimpse of a pristine, vanished America and the beginning of the great and tragic conquest of the West.
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-81107-3
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1995
GENERAL HISTORY | UNITED STATES | WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY
SEEN & HEARD
Important material out of the shadows to which so much labor history is exiled.
Top-drawer narrative histories of two important strikes, and a more amorphous consideration of musicians’ rights to their work, from three progressive historians.
Zinn (The Future of History, 1999, etc.) tackles the Colorado coal strike of 1913–14, during which 11 children and 2 women were found burned to death under tents set ablaze by National Guardsmen in a notorious incident known as the Ludlow Massacre. Zinn is a fine storyteller, keeping the tone low but passionate as he makes plain as day the many evils of John D. Rockefeller Jr.’s coal operation, a veritable fiefdom unto itself, keeping workers in its harness from cradle to grave. He also does a good job highlighting how the New York Times acted in collusion with the coal operators as part of a larger cultural air-brushing of dramatic and violent labor events into oblivion. Frank (American Studies/UC Santa Cruz; Buy American, 1999) displays a jazzier style as he recreates the Woolworth’s sit-down strike of 1937 in Detroit. (“Woolworth’s was a palace built for working-class people. The big fluted columns were made of concrete, not marble, then painted shiny bright colors.”) He too stands foursquare behind the strikers: young white women, poorly paid in dead-end jobs, caught in the revolving door of unskilled work. The radical Waiters’ and Waitresses’ Union of Detroit capitalized on the canny tactic of the sit-down strike, which kept owners from locking out workers and hiring scabs, and the women managed to subvert journalists’ preoccupation with their sex. Kelley (History/NYU; Race Rebels, 1994) tries to get a sense of musicians’ rights through the unsuccessful American Federation of Musicians strike against theater owners in 1936. The topic is unwieldy, as can be seen when looking at today’s controversies Napster and MP3, and Kelley’s broader question—voiced, not answered—is “what happens when working-class consumption of popular culture overrides the interests or concerns of popular culture workers?”
Important material out of the shadows to which so much labor history is exiled.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2001
ISBN: 0-8070-5012-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
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