An informed correction to biographies that have demonized or lionized Toussaint. Note: Bell’s documentation is erratic;...
A sympathetic and sometimes necessarily speculative biography of the Haitian leader whose military and political acumen made possible the independence of his country—although he died in a French prison before the official declaration on Jan. 1, 1804.
Bell (English/Goucher Coll.; The Stone That the Builder Refused, 2004, etc.) artfully and gracefully assembles the wispy, elusive threads of Toussaint’s tale. He begins with background about Columbus’ arrival on the island he called Hispaniola and proceeds with a brief analysis of the importing of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations. Bell notes that we know little about Toussaint’s early years (spent on a plantation, where he worked with horses), but by the time the revolution exploded in 1791, he’d been free for about 15 years and had owned slaves himself. Bell astutely follows the complicated geo-politics involved in the revolution. England, France, Spain, the United States—all had an interest in the region; all, at one time or another, had land and/or naval forces near or on the island. And to varying extents, Toussaint allied himself with all of them, though he always, Bell persuasively argues, sought the abolition of slavery. Toussaint emerges as both accommodating (he endeavored to keep the plantation system—though with paid laborers) and sanguinary (he did not hesitate to order executions). Bell highlights the many parallels between the careers and capabilities of Napoleon and Toussaint; he shows how foreign military involvement can result in tragedy for all; he comments intelligently on the relationships between Voodoo and Catholicism.
An informed correction to biographies that have demonized or lionized Toussaint. Note: Bell’s documentation is erratic; sometimes he identifies his sources, sometimes he doesn’t.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2007
ISBN: 0-375-42337-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 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
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
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