Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun
Author: Erik Larson
This devastating book begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." In so doing, he not only illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.
Publishers Weekly
Wall Street Journal reporter Larson has written a new afterword to this timely study of American gun culture.
Library Journal
In this work, Larson interweaves the story of a boy and his gun (a 16-year-old who kills one teacher and wounds another with a member of the infamous MAC-10 family) with a study of the causes and effects of our gun-happy society. He admits that he has no problem with using handguns for sport or even as a last line of self-defense. But he goes on to propose a model bill calling for sweeping changes in laws governing the distribution, sale, and design of firearms. It's a pity that, by producing a reasonably balanced account of an incendiary subject, Larson will probably alienate both the pro- and antigun camps, and his bill, as he acknowledges, ``doesn't have a chance in hell of being passed.'' Highly recommended nonetheless. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/93.-- Jim Burns, Ottumwa, Ia.
Newsday
Should be required reading.
Look this: Understanding Your Health or Vibrational Healing
Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln
Author: John Stauffer
"Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were the preeminent self-made men of their time. In this dual biography, John Stauffer describes the transformations in the lives of these two giants during a major shift in cultural history, when men rejected the status quo and embraced new ideals of personal liberty. As Douglass and Lincoln reinvented themselves and ultimately became friends, they transformed America." At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross their threshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincoln recognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy the Confederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized that Lincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goal of freeing the nation's blacks. Their relationship shifted in response to the country's debate over slavery, abolition, and emancipation.
Theresa McDevitt - Library Journal
Many books have examined the life of Abraham Lincoln and analyzed his attitudes toward blacks and emancipation. In this comparative treatment, Stauffer (English, Harvard; Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race) traces the extraordinary life journeys of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass from humble origins to national prominence, emphasizing their brief and unique friendship. Enlivening the story with rich detail and well-chosen quotations, Stauffer offers insight into Lincoln's personal and political attitudes toward blacks through an examination of his relationship with the great abolitionist orator whom he treated with courtesy and respect even when his steps toward emancipation and full equality for African Americans were, in Douglass's eyes, agonizingly slow and limited. This interesting book, which grew out of a well-well received article in Time magazine, is recommended for large academic libraries, even those that already own individual biographies of these men.
Kirkus Reviews
A dual biography highlighting the remarkable similarities and the crucial differences between "the two pre-eminent self-made men in American history."The interest in linking Lincoln and Douglass has never been greater-see, for example, Paul and Stephen Kendrick's Douglass and Lincoln (2008) and James Oakes's The Radical and the Republican (2007)-and surely the intertwined careers of both men support continuing efforts to understand their combined, enduring impact. In five double-barreled chapters focusing on comparable stages in each man's life, Stauffer (History of American Civilization and English/Harvard Univ.; The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race, 2002, etc.) explains how Douglass the slave and Lincoln the frontiersman emerged from a culture of poverty, ignorance and violence to international renown. Both were physically imposing; both abstained from tobacco and alcohol at a time when few men did. Both were poetry lovers-they had Robert Burns in common-and both were unsuitably married, Douglass to an illiterate, Lincoln to a termagant. A naturally talented orator, Douglass worked to perfect his writing. Always a good, later a great writer (and a superb editor), Lincoln slowly emerged as an effective public speaker. Addressing public issues, Douglass decided quickly and frequently changed strategies. Lincoln always made up his mind slowly, but then rarely reversed course. Douglass, the radical, never befriended an enemy until after converting that man to his cause. Lincoln, the conciliator, believed that "if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." Notwithstanding calculated, public statements byLincoln and Douglass, Stauffer goes too far in claiming "an interracial friendship." The author is also oddly willing to speculate broadly on Lincoln's premarital sexual history, and unwilling to reciprocate when it comes to Douglass's extramarital relations. Despite these lapses, Stauffer's dexterous interweaving of biographical detail makes for enjoyable reading and serves as a useful introduction to understanding the dynamic between two 19th-century giants. A frequently insightful look at the makeup of two men who helped remake the country.
Table of Contents:
Prologue: Meeting the President (August 10, 1863) 1
1 Privileged Slave and Poor White Trash 25
2 Fugitive Orator and Frontier Politician 67
3 Radical Abolitionist and Republican 129
4 Abolitionist Warrior and War President 213
5 Friends 273
Epilogue 303
Acknowledgments 315
Notes 319
Index 417
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