Nature lovers’ expectations may be unfulfilled, but Dehgan’s lessons provide a sort of textbook on the frustrations and...
The subtitle says it all: Conservation efforts in war zones are the real subjects of this intriguing, detailed, frequently unnerving account, one in which snow leopards play a relatively minor role.
Dehgan, co-founder and CEO of Conservation X Labs, “an innovation and technology startup focused on ending human-induced extinction,” tells his unique story of conservation efforts in postwar Afghanistan. His job, which began there in 2006 under the aegis of the Wildlife Conservation Society, was to examine ecosystems that had been devastated by war, determine what flora and fauna (if any) remained, and set up new national parks along with the legal structures required to maintain them. As the author makes abundantly clear, the physical conditions were challenging and security was lacking, but, as he reminds us frequently, the people he met along the way were friendly, charming, and helpful. However, while some sightings are reported, animals are largely absent in the narrative. Dehgan’s previous experiences working in Russia and Madagascar prepared him well for this job, and he clearly demonstrates the necessary organizational know-how. The author vividly describes the rugged lands he and his crew encountered, but maps would have been a big help to those unfamiliar with the geography. The U.S. Agency for International Development (where the author previously served as chief scientist) comes in for sharp criticism: Dehgan writes that in Afghanistan, USAID had little interest in protecting wildlife or in using science as a tool but a great deal of interest in receiving written reports on the money being spent. The more money spent, the author writes, the happier the USAID.
Nature lovers’ expectations may be unfulfilled, but Dehgan’s lessons provide a sort of textbook on the frustrations and complexities of working on conservation in a place where science runs into the snarls of politics and diplomacy—and often loses.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-695-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
HISTORY | NATURE | MILITARY | 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
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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