Epinions Recent Reviews for shadowbox

The Ancient Champion

Mon, 31 Dec 2001 16:12:35 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - For such a legendary figure, Jack Dempsey has had few full-length books written about him. Innumerable books on boxing history discuss his career, but his own personal story is rarely put center stage. He published an autobiography,...

Epiphanies

Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:28:41 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - One of the great narrative genres in Western culture is the Redemption or Conversion tale, when the protagonist is given a second chance at living life differently or appreciating it anew. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic example,...

Public Pilgrim: Buckley's Nearer, My God

Thu, 22 Nov 2001 08:02:25 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - William F. Buckley Jr.’s Nearer My God: An Autobiography of Faith marks a return for the author to a subject that was at the heart of his first book in 1951--God and Man at Yale--and of so much of his public and intellectual...

Bluesman

Sat, 17 Nov 2001 14:36:26 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Bob Dylan is experiencing another one of his uncanny career revivals, by far the most unlikely of any that have come before. Given his age (60), Dylan should have been done with comebacks long ago, yet he has been riding the most sustained wave of...

New York City: Massacre: New York City, 9/11/01

Thu, 13 Sep 2001 05:30:33 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - In a few hours I will board an early morning train out of Manhattan, where I have lived for 10 years on 14th street, overlooking the two giants that have fallen. Asbestos from the site of the World Trade Center Massacre is blowing uptown now, and my...

Fathers, Sons and Baseball

Sat, 8 Sep 2001 08:57:11 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - The Way Home describes Henry Dunow’s season as coach of his seven-year old son Max’s baseball team in the West Side Little League in Manhattan. A busy New York literary agent, Dunow wonders if he will be able to give the project the...

Virtue and Vision

Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:08:43 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Would that John Adams had lived to see the upsurge in his reputation that has been occurring over the last decade or so, and the surge in popular interest in the life of a man whom Thomas Jefferson once called "the colossus of independence." In his...

Penn's Broken Pledge

Tue, 14 Aug 2001 00:09:13 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Sean Penn’s The Pledge had the makings of an excellent, perhaps even great, film. It doesn’t get there, primarily because of one of the worst endings to a movie I have ever seen. Few movies today make the viewer care so much about their...

Extremism in Defense of Irony is No Vision

Sun, 29 Jul 2001 11:55:38 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - What a mess Tim Burton has made of Planet of the Apes. When the film was announced, it seemed a perfect fit of director to material, but I had my doubts. Though I will always retain a soft spot for Burton for his work on Ed...

We Hold These Truths to Be Mysterious

Fri, 27 Jul 2001 17:24:07 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - The last decade or so has been a rough one for Thomas Jefferson. The 1995 Merchant-Ivory film, Jefferson in Paris, resuscitated the Sally Hemings scandal, presenting the story as historical truth in a film that bore all of its filmmakers’...

The American Revolution: A Group Portrait

Fri, 20 Jul 2001 13:45:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Joseph Ellis has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. A prestigious historian and professor at Mount Holyoke College, he won the National Book Award for his 1996 biography of Thomas Jefferson, American Sphinx, and the...

Alexander The Great

Sat, 14 Jul 2001 11:16:42 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - It is tempting, and has some basis in historical fact, to look at all of American history through the lens of the Jefferson-Hamilton opposition. Attempts to pigeonhole either man with present-day political affiliations, however, are hopelessly flawed...

Act Up!

Sat, 7 Jul 2001 14:12:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Why on earth would a 21st century American take up a book like Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts That Guided Our First President in War and Peace? Written by Richard Brookhiser, the acclaimed author of Founding Father, the...

A Man in Full

Wed, 4 Jul 2001 15:43:20 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - As America celebrates its 225th anniversary, we are more removed as a people from a knowledge of and affection for George Washington than at any time in our history. Schools bearing his name have been renamed in recent years to atone for his...

Ike, We Hardly Knew Ye

Sun, 1 Jul 2001 21:32:43 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - One of the best things PBS has going for it is The American Experience. Hosted by the oracular David McCullough, the series is performing an invaluable service in an illiterate and ignorant age. Americans, however much the Old World derides...

Writing For Business

Sat, 30 Jun 2001 12:07:19 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Recently I was recruited to teach a course on business writing at my company. Evidently the people in human resources learned about my past life as an academic and decided that I was the man for the job. In doing so, they accepted on faith that my brain...

Kings of the Ring: A Compelling But Incomplete History

Thu, 28 Jun 2001 07:02:49 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Kings of the Ring is an ambitious boxing documentary. Written by Thomas Hauser, a Muhammad Ali biographer and apologist, the film aims not only to document the history of the heavyweight championship but also to describe the social and...

The Golden Age of Heavyweights: Champions Forever

Tue, 26 Jun 2001 20:10:48 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Nowadays, the latest WWF stars are probably better known than the top boxers, with one or two exceptions. It’s been a long time since the heavyweight champion of the world was a household name.

Champions Forever takes us back...

Rumblings

Sun, 24 Jun 2001 10:17:50 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - When We Were Kings is justly praised. Telling the story of the 1974 heavyweight title fight in Zaire between challenger Muhammad Ali and champion George Foreman, the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle," the film is way beyond the quality and...

Float Like a Demagogue, Sting Like a Grudge

Fri, 22 Jun 2001 07:29:01 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author shadowbox - Before 24-hour sports stations and the Internet, sports fans anticipated the pronouncements of Sports Illustrated as if awaiting instruction from an oracle. I can recall passages from Sports Illustrated articles describing Muhammad Ali’s...