A plausible and provocative hypothesis on how methods of memorization may have laid the groundwork for many mysterious...
A thought-provoking theory on “memory palaces” and their significance to ancient ancestral civilizations.
Science writer Kelly’s (Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies, 2015) thorough, fascinating examination of indigenous cultures of Australia and New Zealand led her to a new anthropological philosophy on how Stonehenge and other prehistoric monuments were built and their shared purpose. Throughout her doctorate studies, the author invested increasing amounts of time studying the knowledge patterns of primitive, nonliterate societies and the ways in which orality made shared knowledge memorable and applicable. Though widely considered to be intellectually inferior, indigenous cultures like the aborigines of Australia, among many others, developed complex exchanges of encyclopedic knowledge through methods of memory and repetition, perfected over centuries of practice and adaptation. Kelly believes these place-associative memorization systems, whether patterned through songs, dance, mythological stories, stars, landscape, or handheld totems, were instrumental in generating the knowledge necessary to construct what have become some of the world’s most mystifying architectural wonders. Deepening her research, the author applied these mnemonic techniques to her own life, experimenting with local landscapes and honing personal memory skills with representational imagery; she used activities as simple as a walk with her dog to illustrate and apply this ancient technique. Most interestingly, Kelly then applies this theory to the ancient monuments that have confounded and fascinated mankind for centuries. These include Stonehenge, which the author brilliantly and painstakingly analyzes in time period stages, the extraordinary monolithic moai of Easter Island, the expansive geoglyphs in the southern Peruvian desert, and the stone rows and circles of Neolithic France and Britain. Kelly believes all of these were constructed as memory aids to ancient elders, and she generously addresses each location with cleareyed, occasionally dense, yet absorbing prose while drawing important attention to a radical new idea about the real purpose of these historic marvels.
A plausible and provocative hypothesis on how methods of memorization may have laid the groundwork for many mysterious extant monuments.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68177-325-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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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