Brilliantly written account of the 18th-century nobleman was a key player in British naval strategy during the War of Independence—and who invented our favorite fast food. The fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92) is usually written off as the archetypal wicked aristocrat: a self-seeker who neglected his country's interest in the pursuit of the pleasures of the bedroom and the gaming table. Here, British naval historian Rodger- -drawing on a wide range of sources, including Sandwich's own letters and papers—attempts to go beyond this caricature by viewing his subject in the context of the realities of 18th-century party politics and naval warfare. His Sandwich emerges as an ambitious man with many interests and talents but little wealth—a man who consequently was distrusted by his own class and failed to achieve full scope for his powers. His beloved wife went insane, and the mistress he subsequently took was murdered. As First Sea Lord, Sandwich began a fundamental reform of the fleet, making use of seasoned timber and the latest technique of sheathing ships' bottoms with copper to improved speed—but the American Revolution interrupted these plans. Rodger argues that Sandwich's strategy in that war made sense in terms of contemporary presuppositions and the limitations of a Britain under attack from France and Spain: The 13 colonies were lost but Quebec and the West Indies were retained and, above all, the homeland was saved from invasion. Today, Sandwich is best remembered for his part in the revival and continued popularity of Handel's music—and for sandwiches. A pleasure to read—and offering new depth and insights into the political and social values of a critical epoch. (Illustrations)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03587-5
Page Count: 425
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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