A lively account of our Revolution’s most reviled figure.
A history of the American Revolution, focused on George Washington (1732-1799) and Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), in which the author acknowledges Arnold’s good points but does not fully rehabilitate him.
National Book Award winner Philbrick (Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution, 2013, etc.) devotes almost equal time to Washington, in his eyes an incompetent general and a slow—although eventually successful—learner but a superb judge of talent; he knew Arnold possessed plenty. As a militia captain at the 1775 siege of Boston, Arnold impressed Washington with his energy in capturing the fortress of Ticonderoga. His expedition to Quebec ended in disaster but burnished his reputation. In 1777, fearless leadership played a major role in defeating Gen. John Burgoyne at Saratoga. Arnold’s self-regard ensured that success produced more enemies than admirers. Appointed military governor of Philadelphia in 1778, he was a controversial figure and began to profit from a variety of business deals related to his post. In 1779, he offered his services to the British and began sending useful intelligence. Only bad luck derailed his 1780 plot to surrender West Point to the British. In Philbrick’s opinion, Arnold was a psychopath. Oblivious to the consequences of his actions, he was incredibly brave under fire. Peculation was common even among loyal Revolutionary officers, but Arnold’s stood out. He exhausted his fortune to support his campaigns, lived beyond his means, and used his official position, especially in Philadelphia, to enrich himself. Payment dominated his negotiations with the British. After brilliantly chronicling two obscure voyages (In the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory), Philbrick turned to familiar subjects (Mayflower, Bunker Hill) with admirable, if slightly less, brilliance but better sales. Like the latter, Valiant Ambition is solid popular history.
A lively account of our Revolution’s most reviled figure.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-525-42678-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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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