Brookhiser (Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement, 2009, etc.) explores America’s tangled two-party political system and the man instrumental in creating it, James Madison (1751–1836).
The author investigates Madison’s transition from ideological framer of the Constitution to a fervent party man who fought against the Federalist party for decades and led his Republican party during its first military foray, the War of 1812. Though he came of age under the influence and tutelage of luminaries like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Brookhiser’s portrayal of Madison grounds him in the backbiting, often inglorious machinations of his contemporary political system; this approach is both significant and refreshing in presenting Madison as a flawed man, rather than a godlike “founding father.” The author focuses exclusively on Madison the politician, and thereby exposes some of Madison’s less respectable motives for tackling his political enemies—one favored strategy was to enlist vocal, if not always reliable, journalists to spearhead political attacks in the rough-and-tumble world of early American periodicals. This practice, coupled with Madison’s lifelong faith in the power of public opinion and his commitment to protect the freedom of the presses, opens an interesting avenue into this early usage of public opinion and blustering journalism to shape public policy. This is a slim volume, noticeably so in a biography of an instrumental man like Madison; as such, there are episodes of both personal and political moment that would greatly benefit from additional context and analysis. How, for example, could two such close allies, Madison and the fiery Alexander Hamilton, find themselves at opposite ends of a bitter political feud over the role of central government? What was at stake, other than a rather parochial land lust, for Madison and Jefferson as they pursued western expansion? How did Dolley Madison, historically recognized as the first “political wife,” contribute to his politics and his personal life? A useful introduction to a man who is often outshone by his presidential predecessors but who nevertheless was instrumental in creating our modern political system.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-465-01983-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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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