by William Greider ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1998
A journalistic look at the primary post-Soviet threat to the American military. Greider (One World, Ready or Not, 1996, etc.) thrives on saying the emperor has no clothes, and his knack for pointing out the obvious but unseen means only those who consciously avert their eyes can pretend nothing is amiss. He argues here that America’s military-industrial complex is in a state of denial about the end of the Cold War, and that “the status quo in national defense is not going to survive” unless decision-makers confront reality. Instead of the demobilization that has followed previous conflicts, military, political, and industrial leaders are acting as if current budget reductions represent a temporary squeeze rather than a new norm. Rather than give up new weapons systems the Pentagon cuts training and personnel costs, leaving the warriors and their machines “competing with each other for the money.” Rather than admit that the economy Reagan built on defense spending no longer exists and face the political pain of base closings, politicians drain the budget to keep open barely utilized facilities. Rather than rethink and retool the weapons industry, huge factories operate at a fraction of their capacity. But the contradictions between these policies and the political and financial pressures of a post—Cold War budget cannot be sustained indefinitely, and without rethinking priorities, the ability of the military itself to function will be undermined. Greider’s observation while perusing a seemingly endless line of military hardware now parked and waiting for a conflict in Europe that did not happen captures the problem: what do we do “now that a general peace is upon us? We don’t know the answer. We don’t even want to talk about it.” Perhaps this honest glimpse of an untenable situation will start a conversation. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-891620-09-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
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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
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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