Heavy going at times but worth the effort.
The modern history of women in the U.S. military, by two former servicewomen who also worked at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Monahan and Neidel-Greenlee (And If I Perish: Frontline Army Nurses in World War II, 2003, etc.) begin with the volunteer nurses of the World War I era, documenting what becomes a repeated strain in the book: the struggle against a male-dominated hierarchy, both civilian and military. At first the arguments seemed reasonable enough—protecting women by keeping them away from combat zones. That meant putting them in auxiliary units separate from the actual armed service; it also meant denying them equal pay or veterans’ benefits. World War II exposed servicewomen to more increasingly dangerous conditions and let them prove what they could contribute. Eventually, a series of incident exposed the system’s bias. For example, members of the Women’s Army Corps torpedoed en route to service as officers’ secretaries in North Africa were told they had to replace their lost uniforms at their own expense, since they weren’t regular Army personnel. At the end of the war, returning WACs and WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) found they were expected to return to a submissive role; some suggested that they sacrifice the opportunity for college to make room for male veterans. Using interviews with women from all eras, the authors harvest tales of training, bravery under appalling conditions and the pride of service despite the resistance to their aspirations. Ample credit goes to the pioneers, notably Oveta Culp Hobby, first commander of WAC, and Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who led the fight for servicewomen in Congress. In the modern era, military women are permitted a more equal role, yet they still face discrimination, sexual harassment and even rape, a theme that dominates the final chapters. Ultimately, the lengthy narrative is a mixed bag. Some pages ring with authenticity and passion; others plod endlessly. Nonetheless, the authors have found a treasure trove of untold history, and they do not pull their punches in setting it out.
Heavy going at times but worth the effort.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-41514-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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