Despite the author's obvious bias, the Heritage Foundation is undeniably influential, and political operatives of any stripe...
Bird’s-eye view of the right-wing powerhouse that brought us Reaganomics, the Contract with America and the tea party.
Heritage Foundation fellow Edwards is given to both statistics and theory. Nominally a study of now-retired founder Ed Feulner, his book exemplifies several truths of politics, one of which, as California Democratic politician Jesse Unruh once remarked, is that “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” So it is, and the Heritage Foundation receives gifts from corporations and individuals alike that add up to an $80 million per year operating budget, larger than any other think tank of right or left. Feulner’s life is illuminating in this tale of money and power. He began his career as a pro–Vietnam War activist from Chicago who helped win a congressional seat for a hard-right candidate once Don Rumsfeld—yes, that Don Rumsfeld—vacated it and who later served up much of the Reagan administration’s policies on matters fiscal, domestic, military and diplomatic. Edwards is, of course, biased in his hagiographical approach both to Feulner and to other heroes of the rightist cause, whereas his favorite epithet for anyone to the left is “radical.” In the case of Barack Obama, it’s “radical” but also the rather more elaborate “a resourceful Machiavellian" who's "formula was "money + organization + ideology + media + political success."
Despite the author's obvious bias, the Heritage Foundation is undeniably influential, and political operatives of any stripe will gain insight into how the place works courtesy of these pages.Pub Date: March 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3578-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Crown Forum
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
