An accomplished, readable history lesson.
Prolific author and historian Borneman (Rival Rails: The Race to Build America’s Greatest Transcontinental Railroad, 2010, etc.) fashions a comparative history involving four five-star admirals whose tireless efforts and relative strengths tell the moving story of triumph and tragedy during World War II.
The author chose his subjects—Chester Nimitz, William Halsey, William Leahy and Ernest King—because they were the first and only five-star fleet admirals, when five stars were first authorized by Congress in 1944. The four were key to rebuilding the fleet after the debacle of Pearl Harbor: Leahy, the oldest of the Annapolis grads, already a proponent of building up the interwar gunnery as commander of destroyers, was the first to earn an admiral stripe, an early advocate of the “big ship-big gun” strategy; King, formerly head of the postgraduate Naval School, a steely, volatile leader, was appointed commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet after the Japanese attack, eventually muscling out co-consul “Betty” Stark and demonstrating astute strategic insight in dividing command between the North Atlantic and Pacific; Nimitz, who cut his teeth on submarines, was the consummate commander, ferociously exacting but devoted to his men, appointed commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet and proved bold and decisive from one Pacific strike to another; and “Bull” Halsey, a scrappy fighter, commander of destroyers, lauded for his “can-do” leadership in the Solomons—though he endured questioning over his handling of the attack at Leyte in 1944. Borneman deftly manipulates multiple narrative strands and a wealth of detail. He vividly fleshes out the numerous vain, ambitious men vying for power at the top and examines their important decisions and lasting ramifications.
An accomplished, readable history lesson.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-09784-0
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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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