by Donald A. Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2007
A handy introduction to the military genius whose philosophy of war was “draw your swords and throw away the scabbard!”
Brisk entry in Palgrave’s Great Generals series spotlights the battle prowess of Dixie’s warrior-saint.
With the possible exception of Patton, America has never produced a fighting general as outrageously eccentric or gloriously successful as Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1824–63). Orphaned young and only spottily educated, he graduated in the top third of his class at West Point, where fellow cadets remarked upon his rustic and taciturn manner, his queer health notions, bizarre dietary practices, iron discipline, punctilious observance of rules and powers of trance-like concentration. After serving with distinction as an artillery officer in the Mexican War, Jackson endured years in a variety of obscure army posts, then resigned his commission to teach at Virginia Military Institute. There he married, became a devout Presbyterian and subjected a generation of students to awkward, dull lectures and constant, repetitious drills. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he sided with Virginia and delivered a badly needed series of Southern victories, beginning at Bull Run—where his steadfastness under fire earned him his nickname—through his death by friendly fire at Chancellorsville in 1863. Davis (Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor, 2005, etc.) demonstrates how war transformed this silent, humble, shabbily dressed, deeply religious man into a killing machine. Notwithstanding his penchants for secrecy, constant quarrelling with fellow officers and driving himself to the point of useless exhaustion, Jackson became a symbol for the glorious cause second only to Lee. Davis ably distills his battle tactics. Beginning with a comprehensive knowledge of the terrain and well-placed artillery, the general sought to mystify, mislead and surprise, hurling his usually smaller forces against the weaker part of his foe, never letting up until they crushed the enemy. Speed, endurance and boldness characterized the rigorously trained troops who helped carry Jackson into legend.
A handy introduction to the military genius whose philosophy of war was “draw your swords and throw away the scabbard!”Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4039-7477-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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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 Ta-Nehisi Coates ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2015
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
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The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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