From novelist-turned-historian Carr (Casing the Promised Land, 1979), a thorough but plodding biography of American soldier-of- fortune Frederick Townsend Ward. During the 1860's, Ward's brief but meteoric career in the service of the Chinese emperor gave him exceptional influence and status in a society largely closed to foreigners. Ward first appears as a capable mate on American clipper ships engaging in the brisk China trade, with little other than his boldness to suggest the generalissimo of the Ch'ing dynasty he was to become in its protracted struggle against the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64). Taking advantage of Chinese fears in the treaty port of Shanghai, Ward raised a company of foreign irregulars, trained them speedily, and threw them into battle—with less-than-inspiring results. Suffering a bloody rout in an assault on a rebel-held city close to Shanghai, he quickly changed tactics, recruiting Chinese for his main force and closely drilling them in Western methods so that within months he enjoyed a string of successes, becoming known internationally as the brilliant commander of the Ever Victorious Army. His exploits became the stuff of legend, and by the time he fell mortally wounded in battle in September 1862, his place in Chinese military history was assured. Carr, meticulous and scholarly throughout, debunks myths as much as possible given the scant information that survives about Ward, but fails to rise above his sources to provide a compelling account. Solid under the circumstances, but disappointing given Ward's persona and his incredible feats: less the measure of the man than a colorless reassembling of his deeds. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Aug. 27, 1991
ISBN: 0-87113-462-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1991
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 standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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