Tag: Biography

A Pioneering Woman Photojournalist

 

Georgette “Dickey” Meyer Chappelle was a trailblazer. She was one of the first women to report on aviation. Later she became a pioneering photojournalist; the first woman war correspondent in the Pacific during World War II. She covered a slew of conflicts between 1946 and 1965.

“First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent,” by Lorissa Rinehart is the first comprehensive biography of this remarkable woman.  Rinehart follows Chappelle’s life from her 1918 birth until her death in combat in 1965, covering US Marines in Vietnam.

A teenaged Georgette Meyer, then an MIT aeronautical engineering student, skipped class to cover a supply airlift to flood-isolated Worcester, Massachusetts. She got the story. Her displeased parents packed her off to grandparents in Coral Gables, Florida.  Working for the Tenth Annual Miami Airshow she covered an air crash at a Havana airshow. From there she went to TWA, working in publicity.

Roosevelt’s Last Stand

 

‎“The Last Charge of the Rough Rider: Theodore Roosevelt’s Final Days,” by William Hazelgrove, Lyons Press, 2023, 360 pages, $32.00 (Hardcover), $30.00 (Ebook), $20.99 (Audiobook)

In the last two years of his life, Theodore Roosevelt attempted something no ex-President previously did. He wanted to command troops in battle as a division commander.

“The Last Charge of the Rough Rider: Theodore Roosevelt’s Final Days,” by William Hazelgrove tells that story. An account of the last two years of Roosevelt’s life, from April 1917 through January 1919, it recounts the political duel between Roosevelt and then-President Woodrow Wilson.

Alternating between 1917 through 1919 and flashbacks to earlier and significant periods in the lives of Roosevelt and Wilson, Hazelgrove takes readers through the US entry into World War I. He shows the political duel between Roosevelt and Wilson during that time. Roosevelt wanted the US to join the war; Wilson resisted.

An Immigrant Woman in America’s Inner Circles

 

Anna Marie Rosenberg became one of the most influential women in the United States during the middle of the 20th Century. An advisor to Presidents who shaped public policy from the New Deal to the Cold War, she is almost entirely forgotten today.

“The Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America,” by Christopher C. Gorham is a first biography of this influential woman. It recounts a life that should be better known today.

Born Anna Marie Lederer, in Budapest, Hungary, she moved to New York City with her mother and younger sister in 1912 to join her father, who arrived there in 1910. There, Gorham shows, she became the classic American immigrant success story.

A Forgotten Successful General

 

Samuel Ryan Curtis was one of the North’s most successful generals during the American Civil War. He never lost a battle and was the victor at several key battles, including Pea Ridge. He commanded Union forces in the Trans-Mississippi, negotiating peace with the Sioux late in the war. A nationally-known civil engineer pre-war, he helped found the Republican Party. Today he is almost entirely forgotten.

“Union General: Samuel Ryan Curtis and Victory in the West,” by William L. Shea, examines Curtis’s life. The first biography of the man, it is a worthy examination of his life.

Shea reveals an extraordinary man. Born near Lake Champlain in 1805, Curtis grew up in Ohio. He became in turn, a clerk, a civil engineer (developing water projects and later railroad rights of way), a West Point cadet, a lawyer, and a politician. During the Mexican-American War, he commanded the Third Ohio Volunteer Regiment. He served as city engineer in St. Louis, then moved to Iowa to oversee public works and railroad projects in that state.

The Bad Boy of the Union Army

 

Few today remember Benjamin Butler. Those that do generally consider him an incompetent Union general during the American Civil War, or as “Spoons” Butler, enriching himself through stealing silver from Confederate sympathizers while he was military governor of New Orleans.

“Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life,” by Elizabeth D. Leonard, is a new and sympathetic biography of Butler. It reveals the beauty within “Beast” Butler. It also explains how he obtained his “Beast” Butler reputation.

Butler’s defense of the downtrodden, especially his support of black and women’s rights, led to the disdain of his peers and hatred from post-war Lost Cause Confederates. He was pugnacious and never forgave a slight.

A Journalist and a Spy

 

Katherine Clark was an investigative reporter active between the 1940s and 1960s. She was the first female Allied war correspondent entering Berlin in 1945. Her 1950s beat was Eastern Europe. There she spoke truth to power, what investigative reporters are supposed to do. But she spoke the wrong kind of truth about the wrong kind of power. So, unlike those widely lionized today, like I.F. Stone, Clark has been allowed to be forgotten. Until now.

“The Double Life of Katharine Clark: The Untold Story of the American Journalist Who Brought the Truth about Communism to the West,” by Katharine Gregorio, brings Clark’s biography to the attention of a new generation of Americans. What a story it is.

Gregorio focuses the story on Clark’s Eastern European years, when Clark covered anti-Soviet uprisings in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. More importantly, it reveals her efforts on behalf of Milovan Djilas, one-time vice-president of Yugoslavia. An ardent Communist who became disaffected with Communism, he was stripped of his position and the privileges and power that went with it after speaking up against its totalitarianism.

A Remarkable Father-Son Team

 

Isambard Kingdom Brunel is probably the most famous engineer of the nineteenth century. He may have been the best.  Or not. Another lesser-known Brunel is in the running for that title; his father, Marc Isambard Brunel is.

“The Brunels, Father and Son,” by Anthony Burton, is a joint biography of two remarkable men. Burton does a compare-and-contrast on the pair. He concludes it is hard to say who was better.

Isambard Kingdom was best known for building the Great Western Railroad (with its six-foot gauge) and three pioneer steamships, Great Western, Great Britain, and Great Eastern.  Marc Isambard’s signature accomplishment was the Thames Tunnel,  which baffled earlier engineers. He is also known for pioneering mass-production techniques, most notably blocks and army boots.

An American Civilian in WW2 China

 

Paul Springer grew up in New Jersey during the 1920s and 1930s. A smart kid, he graduated high school at 16 in 1934 and worked at a bank. In 1937 he won a full scholarship at Ivy League Yale. Paul wanted adventure. He wanted to travel.

“Blackboards and Bomb Shelters: The Perilous Journey of Americans in China during World War II,” by James P. Bevill, tells what happened next. Yale sponsored the Yali Middle School in Yuanling, Hunan Province in China. It taught in English and Chinese. Every other year Yale sent three Yale graduates to teach there. During his senior year at Yale Paul was invited to apply for one of the positions.

He applied, and with two other Yale graduates sailed to China in July 1941. It was an opportunity to satisfy his dreams of travel during an age when this was rare. While The US was still at peace, China had been at war with Japan longer than Paul had been to Yale. He knew he was entering a war zone. His first-semester teaching at Yali Middle School was punctuated by Japanese air raids.

A Famous German Scientist and His British Fans

 

Albert Einstein was one of the twentieth century’s great men, vying with Winston Churchill for the title of “Man of the Century.” In addition to relativity, he was an accomplished musician and a noted pacifist. He was an Anglophile. He was also an assassin’s target in the 1930s.

“Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist,” by Andrew Robinson tells two tales. It explores the admiration Einstein and Great Britain mutually shared. It shows how the British offered Einstein sanctuary at the scientist’s moment of greatest peril.

The book is also a biography of Einstein, but it is a focused biography. It recounts his life in the context of his relation with Britain. It shows how British physicists, most notably Sir Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell, shaped Einstein’s scientific studies, and fostered an admiration for British scientists.

A Fresh Look at Tolkien

 

J.R.R. Tolkien may be the most beloved twentieth-century author with the most diverse reader base. He appealed to Christian and New Age audiences as well as readers across the political spectrum. Fame and fortune were the last things he really sought. An Oxford professor, he just wanted to tell some stories.

“The Real J.R.R. Tolkien: The Man Who Created Middle Earth,” by Jesse Xander, is a new biography of Tolkien, the first major biography in nearly twenty years.

It is an independent biography, offering a fresh look at Tolkien. Xander reveals Tolkien as simultaneously archetypically ordinary and extraordinarily remarkable, an obscure professor who wrote momentous fiction.

Achieving Peace through Massive Superiority

 

Thomas S. Power, the Strategic Air Command’s leader in the late 1950s and early 1960s was easily caricatured. The ultimate bomber baron, he was routinely mocked as a warmonger. Dr. Strangelove’s General Buck Turgidson was a parody of Power. After retirement, to ease the path of the fighter mafia in taking control of the Air Force, its establishment tacitly supported criticism of Power.

“To Rule the Skies: General Thomas S. Power and the Rise of the Strategic Air Command in the Cold War,” by Brent D. Ziarnick is a new biography of Power. It provides a more balanced view of Power’s life and his contributions to the Strategic Air Command and to peace. In it Ziarnick overturns many conventional wisdom myths about Power.

Power came from an immigrant family in New York City. Ziarnick traces Power from these origins to his eventual rise to command. Power never attended college, and may not have graduated high school. He scrabbled his way into the Army Air Corps studying to be a flying cadet at night, working construction during the day.

The Man Who Transformed the Midcentury Republican Party

 

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was the grandson of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. His namesake was a confidant of President Theodore Roosevelt, and the bête noire of Roosevelt successor Woodrow Wilson. His grandson became at least as prominent a Republican politician during the mid-twentieth century.

“The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and the Making of the Cold War,” by Luke A. Nichter, is a fresh biography of Lodge’s life.

Nichter examines every aspect of Lodge’s life, from his youth through Lodge’s retirement. In between Lodge served many roles: as newspaperman, elected politician, soldier, a political kingmaker, permanent representative to the United Nations for the United States, ambassador, and the President’s envoy to the Vatican.

Stan the Man and How He Transformed Comics

 

Comic books started out in the mid-twentieth century. Originally they were “kid stuff.” As the twentieth century ended they had become a major cultural influence. No man was more responsible for that transformation than Stan Lee. Stan Lee: A Life in Comics, by Liel Leibovitz explores Lee’s life in a biography revealing the man and his influence.

Born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922, Lee grew up in New York City. Good with words, Lee grew up a reader, retreating into books and writing as his father’s career collapsed during the Depression. After high school, deciding to become a writer, he shortened his name to Stan Lee. Comics were not adolescent Lee’s main interest. He read and enjoyed the newspaper comics, but his real love was literature. Shakespeare and movies fascinated him.

Lee drifted into comics. After high school, following a series of unsuccessful jobs, he asked an uncle for help. His uncle sent Lee to Timely Publications, owned by another relative. Timely published pulp – anything that sold. The newest hot seller was comic books. Lee became the errand boy for comic book illustrators Jack Kirby and Joe Simon.

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I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) After my review appears on Sunday, I post the previous week’s review here on Sunday. Book Review ‘Houdini’ reveals escape artist’s secret ambitions By MARK LARDAS Preview Open

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I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) After my review appears on Sunday, I post the previous week’s review here on Sunday. Book Review ‘Churchill’s Phoney War’ a nuanced view of a leader By MARK […]

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I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) After my review appears on Sunday, I post the previous week’s review here on Sunday. Book Review Prominent engineer helps change engineering world By MARK LARDAS Preview Open

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I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) After my review appears on Sunday, I post the previous week’s review here on Sunday. Book Review The start of a naval dynasty examined By MARK LARDAS Preview […]

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I write a weekly book review for the Daily News of Galveston County. (It is not the biggest daily newspaper in Texas, but it is the oldest.) After my review appears, I post the review here on Sunday. Book Review ‘Admiral Gorshkov’ a biography of the Soviet Navy’s architect By MARK LARDAS Preview Open

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