Although Dennison often relies on secondary sources and rocks few boats, this is an insightful, short look at the life of an...
A judicious but lively biography of the highly un-Victorian Queen Victoria (1819-1901), from journalist and historian Dennison (The Twelve Caesars: The Dramatic Lives of the Emperors of Rome, 2013, etc.).
“Stubborn, hotblooded, and autocratic” is a solid description. Early-19th-century education emphasized the importance of “regulating the passions, securing morality, and establishing a sound religion.” This, not the queen’s temperament, defined the Victorian era. “As it happened, only Albert ever persuaded Victoria to regulate her passionate temper, in lessons that were painful to teacher and student,” writes the author. “After his death, there would be signs of backsliding.” Taking the throne at the age of 18, she dismissed her domineering mother (her father was long dead); however, she was certainly not a feminist and remained highly susceptible to the men in her life. Britain’s constitutional monarch was supposed to be above politics, but Victoria made no secret of her affection for some leaders (Melbourne, Disraeli) and dislike of others (Peel, Gladstone). Above all, she cherished her husband, Albert, a minor German prince whom she loved at first sight and to whom she happily submitted. As a foreigner, Albert was never admired in Britain, but unlike the case with Victoria, his approval among historians has risen steadily, and Dennison concurs. His death in 1861 devastated the queen. Mourning obsessively, she went into seclusion for a decade, which greatly diminished her popularity. Although she lacked charisma and disliked public appearances, sheer longevity converted her final decades into an apotheosis of Britain’s glory. At her death after a 63-year reign, everyone understood that a significant era had passed.
Although Dennison often relies on secondary sources and rocks few boats, this is an insightful, short look at the life of an immortal if only sometimes-admirable queen.Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04889-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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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