by Andro Linklater ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 13, 2009
A well-wrought study of far-reaching treachery in the early years of the United States.
In-depth portrait of the treasonous General James Wilkinson (1757–1825).
The historian Frederick Jackson Turner called Wilkinson “the most consummate artist in treason the nation has ever possessed,” and historian Linklater (The Fabric of America: How Our Borders and Boundaries Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity, 2007, etc.) builds a strong case that he deserved that title. Wilkinson had an impressive military career. He fought in the battle of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War, led troops during the War of 1812 and was appointed governor of the newly organized Louisiana Territory by President Thomas Jefferson. But throughout his life, rumors abounded that he was a spy for the Spanish. Four different presidents were informed of Wilkinson’s close Spanish contacts in New Orleans and Madrid, and four official inquiries were made to investigate accusations against him, but Wilkinson was repeatedly cleared of all charges. Later, he was accused of collaborating with Aaron Burr on a plot to create an independent nation in the West; he was court-martialed and cleared again. It wasn’t until decades after his death—when historians uncovered hundreds of documents detailing Wilkinson’s correspondence with and payment by Spanish handlers—that the extent of his betrayal was revealed. Linklater paints a colorful portrait of Wilkinson as an extraordinarily careful individual who frequently communicated with his Spanish contacts via codes and ciphers, and laundered payments through real-estate deals. But his motives for treason may have been more complex than mere monetary gain. Wilkinson, the author argues, also had a selfish and insatiable hunger for information and intelligence, and “possessed an exceptionally well-informed, clear-eyed view of the rapidly changing era in which he lived, and of the advantages to be wrung from it.”
A well-wrought study of far-reaching treachery in the early years of the United States.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1720-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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