A dazzling work of research, written with the flair of a novel.
Delving into a little-known odyssey.
This engaging history tells the story of Nathaniel Isaacs (1808-1872), a British Jewish adventurer whose exploits, writes Rovner, “can be seen as a cross between an orphaned hero from a Charles Dickens novel…and a character from an H. Rider Haggard African adventure.” Isaacs was born to a merchant family in London. He traveled to the island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was in exile, to join his relatives in their commercial work. He sailed to southern Africa, where he served in the court and the armed forces of King Shaka Zulu. He worked in East Africa, building a successful business in Sierra Leone. Eventually, he fell afoul of the British administration and wound up back in England. This book relies in part on Isaacs’ memoir, rich with brilliantly limned characters, scenes of epic depravity, and moral judgments. Much of that may be made up, but Rovner, author of In the Shadow of Zion, gets behind its fantasy to excavate the complex history of race relations, colonial expansion, and Jewish identity. At the heart of the book is a story about changing notions of race and religion. Were Jews believed to be related to Africans? What role did Jews play in “the great game” of African exploitation and the slave trade? On Matakong Island, off the coast of Guinea, Isaacs tested the limits of power. He became a “culture broker, mediating between Indigenous and colonial interests.” He established his own private army. Readers watch Isaacs’ descent into slave-trading turpitude, “until finally the serpent’s egg of unrestrained power hatched within his soul, and he brutalized the bodies of those who sought little more than scraps of clothing, a bowl of rice, a morsel of meat.” Good and evil blur in this story, and Rovner’s evocative writing and scrupulous scholarship reveal a world that will be new, even to those familiar with colonial history.
A dazzling work of research, written with the flair of a novel.Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9780520403000
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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