An aggressive first-person critique of current fashions and procedures in higher education for black Americans. Sowell, a UCLA professor, begins with a good account of his own difficulties and accomplishments in segregated and integrated schools. He finally made it magna cum laude through Harvard and won success as an economist; but though he basically believes in uplift through education, this is not just another "I-made-it" testimonial. In part it is a defense of the black student's right to a first-rate education. Sowell maintains that putting ill-prepared blacks, especially from the ghetto, into a high-pressure situation at top universities creates destructive frustrations and catalyzes self-consolatory militant separatism; but to compensate with black studies programs full of soft courses and lower standards is to cheat the student. This view is elaborated at circumstantial length, especially with reference to the 1969 Cornell upheavals. Sowell is severe toward those black administrators and teachers who in his view cover their mediocrity by playing campus politics and by spouting the rhetoric of blackness. He further argues that many able, industrious black students are being discriminated against by recruiters searching for the more "underprivileged" albeit less gifted and he decries the tendency to dismiss working-class black families as "middle-class." There is a good empirical criticism of Jensen-style theories of innately inferior black intelligence, but Sowell does not ask why these theories are becoming fashionable; and, though he acknowledges that black education cannot be discussed in a vacuum, he doesn't specify what people should be educated for, but concentrates on the "talented tenth" who will become professionals and scholars; thus bypassing the job situation of most blacks. Nonetheless, his specific proposals for recruitment of students, pre-college training, and a black-sponsored institute for advanced study, deserve attention. A significant essay, appealing in its toughness, which may be praised or blamed for the wrong reasons, but should be welcomed by those who reject the paternalism and shortchanging implicit in much current black education.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1972
ISBN: 0679300155
Page Count: 338
Publisher: McKay
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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