A well-informed but too-terse portrait of Paris’ colorful history.
A British historian summarizes the history of one of the world’s great cities.
In the latest installment of the publisher’s Short History series, prolific author Black offers a quick rundown of the major political and cultural events that have made Paris one of the most visited and romanticized cities. He covers a lot of ground, from the city’s earliest days, when Caesar’s deputy defeated the Parisii in 52 B.C. and put the city under Roman control; to medieval times, when Charlemagne was crowned in 768 but “spent most of his life on campaign, notably against the Saxons”; to the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, the building of Versailles in the 17th, the “great flourishing of creativity” by authors and musicians in the 1920s, and the massive projects—high-speed train service, the Louvre’s pyramid entrance—begun under François Mitterrand in the late 20th century. Black’s volume, while clearly erudite, is pretty much a list of major historical events, construction projects, and so on, with little or no elaboration. The one exception is the more in-depth chapter on the French Revolution. Readers seeking an executive summary of Parisian history—punctuated by wonderful old maps and inserts on lighter topics, including the Montgolfier brothers’ pioneering flight in a hot-air balloon and the growth of fast-food chains that showed “not all Parisians are unwilling to spend their money on ultra-processed burgers and fried chicken”—may find it useful and entertaining. The author also offers some memorable oddities, such as the story of Saint Denis, first bishop of Paris. Around 250 A.D., “during the persecution of Christians,” Emperor Decius “allegedly” had him beheaded at Montmartre: “It was said that he picked up his decapitated head and walked for some distance, preaching as he went.”
A well-informed but too-terse portrait of Paris’ colorful history.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9780500027080
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
HISTORY | ANCIENT | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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