A thoughtful account of the timber wolf's return to the Northern Rockies. ``It has been sixty years, thirty wolf generations, since the last wolf pups were poisoned in the Yellowstone,'' writes McNamee (A Story of Deep Delight, 1990). Led by an activist group called the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, of which McNamee is a past president, biologists successfully pressed to undo the destruction of this predator, which had played an essential role in the health of the Yellowstone ecosystem. That effort, he writes, involved a huge campaign to raise public awareness and to enlist the support of private individuals, and it worked. Interior Department hearings on reintroduction produced some 160,000 letters from across the country, ``the biggest official citizen response to any federal action ever.'' Not all those responses were favorable, and much of McNamee's account is given to studying the divisive politics of reintroduction, in which environmentalists squared off against so-called Wise Use movement activists in court and on the streets. Those political debates heated up when fewer than a dozen wolves were finally released in Yellowstone National Park two years ago; not long afterward, one of them was shot down by a pair of local yahoos, one of whom served six months in jail for the crime. The surviving wolves have established themselves in their former habitat and appear to be thriving, although thanks to political pressure from opponents, federal support for the reintroduction program has shriveled. McNamee peppers his episodic narrative with asides about his travels in central Italy, where a similar reintroduction program is taking place, and looks at other efforts elsewhere in the US. A good one-volume reference for fans of Canis lupus, although the story has been widely reported elsewhere, such as in Rick McIntyre's War Against the Wolf.
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8050-3101-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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