An intensely detailed but still superficial chronicle of the media baron’s life through early middle age. Hearst newspapers didn’t tell the news; they used it as a means for conveying a point of view. When the news did not fit the mold Hearst envisioned, he and his minions reshaped it until it did. Procter (History/Texas Christian Univ.) tells this part of Hearst’s story extremely well. Hearst revolutionized journalism by demonstrating how powerful it could be as a means to an end, with making money far less important than promoting Hearst’s political causes and aspirations, and vilifying those who opposed them. Contrary to Hearst’s popular image, the causes he relentlessly promoted when he was first building his empire were remarkably progressive: an eight-hour day, utility and railroad regulation, the right to organize. Muckraking works like Sinclair Lewis’s The Jungle were serialized in Hearst papers, and Tammany Hall, scared that Hearst would end corruption if he became mayor of New York, blatantly stole the election. Procter worked hard on this book, reading, he says, every issue of such Hearst newspapers as the New York Journal (later the New York American) and the San Francisco Examiner over several years. But just as Hearst newspapers often revealed little of the facts beneath the hype, Procter reveals too little of the man who orchestrated the show. We have no idea, for example, whether Hearst pursued progressive causes out of true conviction or as a means of mobilizing America’s burgeoning urban working class as readers of his newspapers and soldiers marching behind his banner. One fears that the promised second volume will be as frustrating as the first—that we will learn as little about why Hearst swung so sharply to the right in his later years as we do about why he was so progressive early on. Procter’s biography, like the Hearst newspapers of the period he chronicles, is great reading, but too much on the surface, shedding too little light on the realities underneath. (20 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: April 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-19-511277-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
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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