A no-holds-barred portrait of a controversial figure and a feast for World War II aficionados.
An examination of the reputation of Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), at one point the most admired of all the generals on the Allied side of World War II.
Borneman (American Spring: Lexington, Concord, and the Road to Revolution, 2014, etc.) draws on a wealth of sources to give a clear, full-length portrait of MacArthur, who carefully massaged his image with frequent press releases. In the early chapters, the author recapitulates MacArthur’s career before 1941 when, as commander in the Philippines, he was caught unprepared when the Japanese attacked the day after Pearl Harbor. A desperate defense on the Bataan peninsula failed to hold the Japanese. After direct orders from the president, MacArthur evacuated to Australia to organize Allied efforts to stem the tide. Despite his loss of the Philippines, he was widely seen as a hero, something Americans desperately needed in the dark days of 1942. Borneman chronicles the buildup of American forces and the step-by-step progress of the general’s return to the Philippines and the ultimate defeat of Japan. Stories of his infighting with other U.S. commanders make up much of the narrative. The author portrays MacArthur as a prima donna who regularly inflated his own exploits and bad-mouthed anyone who got between him and his perceived destiny. But Franklin Roosevelt and Gen. George Marshall recognized MacArthur’s value both as a general and as a symbol, and they tried to keep him happy, as Borneman amply shows with quotes from memos and messages. The author shows a grudging respect for his subject despite an understandable impatience with some of his less admirable qualities. These included declaring battles won when there was still serious resistance—which he left to subordinates to clean up while he moved on in an aura of victory. On the other hand, he showed real personal courage, frequently touring beachheads only hours after troops had landed. The book concludes with him presiding over the Japanese surrender in the fall of 1945, one of his finest moments.
A no-holds-barred portrait of a controversial figure and a feast for World War II aficionados.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-40532-4
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
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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