The authoritative author imparts her vast knowledge in an orderly chronology and lively, intimate history. A perfect choice...
A sweeping look at this epic history emphasizing the role of women rulers.
From the earliest creation myths of the sun god—the great “He-She”—the Egyptian universe brought together two halves of a complete whole: “female and male, mother and father, sister and brother, daughter and son.” As such, insists British Egyptologist and prolific author Fletcher (Archaeology/Univ. of York; Cleopatra the Great: The Woman Behind the Legend, 2011, etc.), “the modern tendency to focus on the masculine can only ever see half the story.” The author emphasizes this idea as she traces Egyptian history from the earliest cattle herders and hunters of the river valleys 30,000 years ago to the zenith of wealth and influence under the rule of Amenhotep III of Thebes to the annexation of Egypt by Rome and death of Cleopatra VII in 30 B.C.E. The theme of duality also encompasses the tensions and competition between the north and south regions of the Nile—Lower and Upper Nile, respectively, following the direction of the longest river in the world—where distinct cultures developed by 5000 B.C.E., emphasizing different modes of burial customs, flax production, writing, and more. Following rapid technological advances, the southern culture would soon come to dominate the north, and the two consolidated into the first nation state in 3100 B.C.E. under King Narmer, whose dynasty continued over the next three millennia through a combination of conquest and marriage diplomacy, with a new capital established in Memphis. Fletcher’s delineation of the rise and fall of kingdoms, invasions by neighbors such as the Hyksos and Nubians, Persians and armies of Alexander the Great, all makes for a dense, elucidating narrative, especially as illustrated through spectacular artifacts unearthed from the plethora of burial sites.
The authoritative author imparts her vast knowledge in an orderly chronology and lively, intimate history. A perfect choice for budding Egyptologists.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68177-134-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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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