Lacouture follows up his De Gaulle: The Rebel, 1890-1944 (1990) with another admiring volume, tracing how the triumphant leader of the Free French consolidated his position as the colossus bestriding his country's political institutions. The author sees in de Gaulle a ``grand nomad'' who sometimes had to forsake power and ``take to the wilderness for his true stature and the sheer gap left by his absence to be perceived.'' Correctly predicting the fatal legislative wrangling and executive impotence of the new French constitution, the general resigned as head of the provisional government in 1946, then waited 12 years before the Algerian crisis forced the nation to turn to him, at age 67, as president of the Fifth Republic. Gaullist diplomacy gets the lion's share of coverage here, including the confrontation with the military over Algeria, the attempt to assert European independence from the superpowers while opposing Marxism, the shift toward Israel's Arab foes, and the May 1968 student rebellion that hastened the end of the general's career. Unlike many Anglo-Saxon biographers, Lacouture ascribes de Gaulle's prickly postwar relations with former American and British allies less to his arrogance than to his refusal to diminish French sovereignty. De Gaulle's policies are explained, but not his mastery of men, and criticism is limited (notably, of the general's manipulating the threat of an army coup d'etat to return to power, and of his deciding to make France an atomic power, even though the move increased the danger of nuclear proliferation). A leisurely biography that stints on explaining how de Gaulle worked his imperious will, but scores in detailing his evolution as a symbol of national unity and as a geopolitical realist. (Photographs.)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-393-02699-X
Page Count: 700
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
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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