The second of three installments in an ambitious biography of one of the century's most perplexing and beguiling politicians. Volume tree left off with Nixon's "last press conference" after he lost the 1962 California gubernatorial election. Ambrose sets the tone for this second book by demonstrating that almost immediately after that "farewell" to politics, Nixon began painstakingly to construct his own personal resurrection—and attained the Presidency only six years later. Those six years and the four of Nixon's first term are the purview of this volume—which, unfortunately, does not rivet the attention as did the first. Perhaps this is because in recounting the early life, Ambrose had the luxury of discovering much that was unknown about Nixon's roots. Or perhaps it is because the major focus here is the tedious explication of political positions—the endless excerpts from Nixon speeches, writings, and interviews. And perhaps it is because (no fault of Ambrose) readers may be satiated by this most written-about president—if only from the prolific pen of Nixon himself. At any rate, to veteran observers of Nixon's triumphal years, there is really very little new offered here. The author is somewhat more repulsed by Nixon ascendant than he was by Nixon the apprentice: the campaign of 1968 is described as one of the most "loathsome" in memory; Nixon's admiration for Kissinger is based on a mutual basis of "secrecy, rumor, intrigue"; Nixon is pictured as motivated by unyielding insecurity and anxiety, continually in quest of Eisenhower's illusive imprimatur. A thorough but uninspired account of Nixon's middle years.
Pub Date: Oct. 19, 1989
ISBN: 0671725068
Page Count: 736
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1989
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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