The second volume in Manchester's masterly three-part biography (Visions of Glory, 1874-1932; 1983) of Winston Churchill, which now limns as well as lionizes the aging Tory during his political exile. Sympathetically portrayed here as "the last of England's great Victorian statesmen" for his staunch defense of the empire and its values, Churchill did not beweep his outcast state. Though a parliamentary backbencher without ministerial portfolio, the sometime insider managed to stay remarkably well informed on Germany's secret rearmament and its territorial ambitions throughout the 1930's. Churchill spoke out forcefully in the House of Commons and wrote scores of articles against Hitler and the Nazi threat. Until the eleventh hour, though, he was a prophet largely without honor in his own country—and party. With anguished memories of the nation's WW I losses, the ruling Conservatives made appeasement a keystone of British foreign policy. But, while devoting detailed attention to where and how Churchill's contemporaries went wrong, Manchester does not overlook his subject's faults. For instance, Churchill's preparedness campaign suffered a serious setback when —with more loyalty than judgment—he espoused the cause of Edward VIII during the abdication crisis. Nor can Churchill's relationships with his children—notably, Randolph and Sarah—be deemed much of a success. On balance, of course, there were decidedly more credits than debits to his account during the gathering storm, and he became the moral equivalent of a consensus choice for Prime Minister after the onset of WW II. Manchester closes on a triumphant note: the May 19, 1940, radio address in which Churchill enjoined the British to brace for battle and "their finest hour." An eloquent and evenhanded appreciation. The text includes photographs (not seen).
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1988
ISBN: 0385313314
Page Count: 800
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1988
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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