Provocative, agile and very well argued, with an a-ha! moment on nearly every page.
An anthropological and psychological account of the human propensity for organized murderous mischief.
War, writes U.K.-based syndicated columnist Dyer, is not a consequence of civilization, as some scholars have argued; “it’s clear,” he asserts, “that modern human beings did not invent warfare. We inherited it.” The bequest comes courtesy of our Paleolithic and even protohominid ancestors, à la the opening scenes of 2001, yet supposedly civilized people have become ever so accomplished at developing new and improved ways to slaughter each other, and a hallmark of progress has been a steady advance in the effectiveness of our fighting forces. On the last point Dyer is particularly good; whereas primitives fought battles that were largely symbolic (if sometimes lethal), and whereas the vast majority of the weapons thrown down and abandoned at Gettysburg were loaded but not fired, as if to spare the enemy, modern martial societies such as the U.S. Marines instill the notion that their members are killers foremost. Killer or angel, field soldiers have short-term jobs: either they’re wounded or killed themselves, or they collapse psychically. The U.S. Army calculated during WWII, writes Dyer, that this breakdown occurs within 240 days of combat, while the British, who rotated soldiers from the line more frequently, allowed 400 days. Everyone was a candidate, but the reason psychiatric disorders did not show up more frequently in the casualty rolls, Dyer suggests, “was that most combat troops did not survive long enough to go to pieces.” Combat has changed since WWII, and individual soldiers have a somewhat better chance of survival, though the game keeps shifting: here, war is a matter of terrorism, there of conventional forces turned to genocide, and always the shadow of the Bomb hangs over us. War as an extension of politics “may seem either absurd or obscene to outsiders,” Dyer observes, adding that as long as people insist that war has its adherents, we need a genuinely strong United Nations to keep the planet from going up in flames.
Provocative, agile and very well argued, with an a-ha! moment on nearly every page.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7867-1538-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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 Yorkerstaff 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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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