Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans
Author: Winston Groom
December 1814: its economy in tatters, its capital city of Washington, D.C., burnt to the ground, a young America was again at war with the militarily superior English crown. With an enormous enemy armada approaching New Orleans, two unlikely allies teamed up to repel the British in one of the greatest battles ever fought in North America.
The defense of New Orleans fell to the backwoods general Andrew Jackson, who joined the raffish French pirate Jean Laffite to command a ramshackle army made of free blacks, Creole aristocrats, Choctaw Indians, gunboat sailors and militiamen. Together these leaders and their scruffy crew turned back a British force more than twice their number. Offering an enthralling narrative and outsized characters, Patriotic Fire is a vibrant recounting of the plots and strategies that made Jackson a national hero and gave the nascent republic a much-needed victory and surge of pride and patriotism.
The Washington Post - Adam Rothman
In Patriotic Fire , Winston Groom tells the astonishing story of how a ragtag corps of backwoodsmen, Louisiana creoles, refugees, pirates, Indians and free African Americans defeated a large, disciplined, experienced and professional British army at the Battle of New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815 -- a day that Americans used to celebrate as a national resurrection. Groom, the author of Forrest Gump and several works of military history, has written a book that's neither original nor entirely reliable; it is pieced together from other historians' scholarship and occasionally dubious sources. Yet it is lively and interesting to read against the backdrop of current events.
Publishers Weekly
Groom is a novelist (Forrest Gump) and popular historian, with a string of well-reviewed books on war (e.g., Shrouds of Glory). A diligent researcher, he nevertheless has no pretensions as a scholar. His strength is a remarkable ability to recreate and revitalize events long considered familiar. He's best at structuring his narrative around personalities, and the Battle of New Orleans offers him a colorful cast. Andrew Jackson was a backwoods politician wearing the epaulettes of a general. Smuggler and buccaneer Jean Laffitte rejected a British bribe to become an American patriot. Around them coalesced a hard-bitten army. Five thousand regular soldiers and militiamen from Tennessee and Kentucky; free blacks and Creole aristocrats; displaced Acadians; gunboat sailors and pirates turned artillerymen-all confronted twice their number of British, most of them veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. At stake was New Orleans and the Mississippi River basin: the developing heartland of an expanding nation. Groom is defensibly hyperbolic in describing Jackson's unexpected victory as the wellspring of a pride and patriotism that endured into the 20th century. His vivid account of how that victory was won merits a place in both public and private collections. Photos, maps. (May 4) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Groom, a novelist (Forrest Gump) and historian (1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls) has written a lively account of the last battle in the War of 1812, which actually took place in January 1815, a couple of weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed but before news of the treaty had crossed the ocean. Although, as the title indicates, Groom focuses on the two protagonists on the American side, he does not neglect their British foes. In addition, plenty of details about early 19th-century life and vignettes from what was already America's most distinct city add depth and flavor to Groom's narrative. He does a good job of placing the battle and the war itself in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, and he does not neglect the consequences of this unexpected victory for the young republic and its newest hero. Clearly, the United States was now a force to be reckoned with. This is not revisionist history but a good retelling; Groom has added a bibliographic essay in which he discusses the characters involved, the major sources available on the battle, and the controversies among these sources. Recommended for public and undergraduate libraries.-Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
War is hell-and it doesn't get easier when gators and giant skeeters are involved, to say nothing of the shredding cannon and musket fire that punctuates Forrest Gump author Groom's latest. The last couple of publishing seasons seem to have belonged, for unknown reasons, to Andrew Jackson. Running a touch late, Groom continues the meme, offering up a study that doesn't add much to recent works such as William Davis's The Pirates Laffite (2005) and H.W. Brands's Andrew Jackson (2005) save for good storytelling. Groom's excursions into history have usually been provoked by discovering that some relative or another played a part, and this is no exception: A distant forebear turns out to have been commended by Jackson himself for bravery under fire, which is prologue and pretext enough to sustain a narrative that, while not particularly original, suffers only from a certain breeziness ("Andrew Jackson's brand of warfare . . . was certainly no picnic for the Indians"; "I'm not proud that my ancestors owned slaves, but neither do I subscribe to the historic fallacy of assigning present-day ethics or morals to such a widely accepted practice by people who lived nearly two hundred years ago"). That narrative turns on a few key moments that are well known to historians but perhaps not to general readers, such as the privateer and putative pirate Jean Laffite's rejecting British enticements to join them and instead throwing his lot in with Old Hickory, only to be betrayed by an ungrateful U.S. government. Groom finds much drama in all the unpleasantries, including some advanced by the noble heroes of New Orleans, as when Jackson orders the execution of supposed deserters and when one psychopathicTennessean revels in slaughtering unfortunate redcoat sentries. Skillfully done, if not strictly necessary, matching the Monday morning quarterbacking of the practiced military historian with good novelistic technique.
Books about: Wild Strawberries and Cream or Altbier
Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo
Author: Lawrence Anthony
When the Iraq war began, conservationist Lawrence Anthony could think of only one thing: the fate of the Baghdad Zoo, located in the city center and caught in the war's crossfire. Once Anthony entered Baghdad he discovered that full-scale combat and uncontrolled looting had killed nearly all the animals of the zoo.
But not all of them. U.S. soldiers had taken the time to help care for the remaining animals, and the zoo's staff had returned to work in spite of the constant firefights. Together the Americans and Iraqis had managed to keep alive the animals that had survived the invasion.
Babylon's Ark chronicles the zoo's transformation from bombed-out rubble to peaceful park. Along the way, Anthony recounts hair-raising efforts to save a pride of the dictator's lions, close a deplorable black-market zoo, and rescue Saddam's Arabian horses. His unique ground-level experience makes Babylon's Ark an uplifting story of both sides working together for the sake of innocent animals caught in the war's crossfire.
Publishers Weekly
Anthony, a South African conservationist and recipient of the U.N.'s Earth Day award, details how, through a series of complex maneuvers, he entered Iraq after the American invasion and led the fight to save what was left of the Baghdad Zoo. Most of the animals were killed by war and looting; the remainder were starved and in filthy cages, with no staff to care for them. Anthony describes how he, along with the zoo's former deputy director and several brave workers, risked daily danger to save the bears, lions, tigers, monkeys and birds. Anthony fended off looters with a gun obtained from a sympathetic U.S. soldier, spent his own funds for equipment and bartered the use of a satellite phone for food and other essentials. Anthony vividly recounts the rescue of other animals, including the inhabitants of the appalling Luna Park Zoo and Saddam's prize Arabian horses, saved from the hands of black marketeers. The author takes no position on the invasion. His goal is for his mission, so dramatically recounted with journalist Spence's help, to set an example of conservation and respect for animal life. 8 pages of color photos. (Mar. 12) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Terrific tale about how Iraqis, a South African conservationist and American soldiers saved the animals of the Baghdad Zoo. In April 2003, in the opening days of the Iraq War, the Baghdad Zoo was bombed, its animals released or taken. Watching the war unfold on television, South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony became determined to travel to Baghdad and save what animals he could. Upon arrival, Anthony discovered Dr. Husham Hussan, the zoo's vet, daily risking his life in an effort to feed and hydrate the few remaining creatures, including a Bengal tiger, a blind brown bear, several lions, a lynx and a few boars. Baboons, monkeys and various birds, all of whom had escaped their damaged cages, freely wandered the zoo grounds. With the zoo's water pumps broken, the two men ferried water to the parched animals bucketful by bucketful from a nearby canal, an all-day job in 115-degree heat. Although still engaged in combat, American soldiers offered to help, giving the animals their MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), and "liberating" crucial supplies, ranging from cleaning solvents to generators to food for the zoo staff. In addition to saving the zoo's animals, Anthony and his team rescued lions from one of Saddam's son's "love nests," closed down a black-market exotic-animal ring and rounded up some of Saddam's prized Arabian horses. Happily, the zoo's future was secured when coalition forces offered to rebuild the zoo and the surrounding Al Zawra Park as a symbol of goodwill toward the Iraqi people. A wartime story with a joyful ending.
No comments:
Post a Comment