by Jacqueline Riding ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2016
Riding provides an exciting account of a doomed rebellion and ably explores the psyche of the fierce, devoted Highlanders.
Riding (Mid-Georgian Britain: 1740-69, 2010, etc.), a specialist in 18th-century British history and culture, delivers a comprehensive history of the events of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.
During that year, Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, got tired of waiting in Rome and decided to take back the crown lost in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Depending on help from France, with no assurance whatever that it was forthcoming, Charles landed in Scotland to gather the clans he was sure would support him. The young Charles was willful, sullen, and generally uninspiring. He was naïve and had no political acumen or anything even approaching military ability. In fact, he had never set foot in Scotland or England. What is most interesting about the attempt to regain the throne is how few battles were actually fought. Poor defenses, fear of the ferocious Highlanders, and a British army busy fighting in Flanders caused first Edinburgh, then Carlisle, Chester, Preston, and finally Derby to capitulate without a fight. Charles’ unregimented army was made up of clans, none of whom would serve under another. The Highlanders’ army moved swiftly, with little in the way of baggage or armaments—so quickly that Sir John Cope’s troops couldn’t catch up with them, if they could ever figure out their destination. Readers may have similar difficulties with the book’s miniscule map, which proves largely useless. The return of King George II’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, was the death knell for the uprising. Even with help from France trickling in, Charles’ insistence on pushing on to London was doomed. They had no backup and nowhere near the support they had imagined. Most of us only know the ’45 for its desperate end at Culloden, but as close as they came to success, the author definitively demonstrates that it was always unsustainable.
Riding provides an exciting account of a doomed rebellion and ably explores the psyche of the fierce, devoted Highlanders.Pub Date: July 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60819-801-6
Page Count: 608
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Share your opinion of this book
by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
17
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
National Book Award Finalist
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.