An evenhanded, reasoned contribution to an overheated discussion.
No border wall can impede an inescapable fact: Mexico and the United States are inextricably joined to one another culturally, economically, and politically.
Most Americans, by Migration Policy Institute president Selee’s (What Should Think Tanks Do?: A Strategic Guide to Policy Impact, 2013, etc.) account, have positive views of Mexico, Mexicans, and indeed immigrants in general. Yet, even if immigration from Mexico, legal and otherwise, has dropped substantially since 2007, there are still a sizable number of gringos who fear the southerly other—and the farther from the border, all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue, the more the fear grows. The author examines economic, political, and cultural trends that might allay their worries. In an instantly comprehensible note, Selee observes that everywhere in the country people celebrate “Taco Tuesday,” even where there is no other Mexican influence to speak of, and non-Hispanic Americans love their salsa and nachos. What’s more, the Mexican-owned Sigma Foods concern has captured a big chunk of market share of low-cost hot dogs after having discovered that on this side of the border, “segmenting off Latino customers” was more difficult than simply appealing to a mass market. It’s not just Mexican food: Mexico’s economy is growing overall in such a way that it could surpass Canada’s by 2050 and thereby “become one of the top ten economies of the world.” One interesting gauge, writes Selee, is the growing prevalence of Mexican filmmakers in Hollywood, as witnessed in the results of the last Oscars. It would seem ill-advised from a purely commercial point of view to alienate that audience, but the author is optimistic that even if the current administration manages to do so, the effects will be temporary, since “the forces driving Mexico and the United States together will ultimately be stronger than any decisions made by politicians in Washington, DC, or Mexico City.”
An evenhanded, reasoned contribution to an overheated discussion.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61039-859-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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