Robust research underpins this judicious record of Palestinian life.
The events preceding October 7, 2023.
Irfan’s study of Gaza since 1948—the year Israel was established, “displacing the majority of the Palestinian population”—argues that several “critical episodes” can inform our understanding of the catastrophic 2020s. “To explain is not to excuse,” writes Irfan, a lecturer in interdisciplinary race, gender, and postcolonial studies at University College London who focuses on Palestinian refugee rights. Her account of wars, rebellions, atrocities, and short-lived governments highlights often-overlooked background to the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza, which followed Hamas’ 2023 deadly attacks on Israel. Much of the writing in this well-documented book is followed by endnotes pointing to Irfan’s sources. The “infamous population density” of the Gaza Strip, often cited in media reports on civilian deaths, took shape when 80,000 people living on the 141-square-mile piece of land saw their number more than triple with the arrival of 200,000 Palestinian refugees in the two years after Israel’s founding. While images of Palestinian boys throwing rocks at Israeli tanks “became an icon of the conflict’s asymmetry,” there were periods of relative openness and hope, Irfan reminds us. Malcolm X and other midcentury activists visited Gaza, and in 1998 President Bill Clinton landed at Gaza’s new international airport, which was destroyed in 2002 by Israeli airstrikes launched during the second Palestinian intifada. The author doesn’t seek false equivalents. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups—so-called fedayeen, “the ones who sacrifice themselves”—have oppressed their own people, rallied around antisemitic lies, and murdered many unarmed Israeli civilians long before 2023. And for decades, Israel has used “collective punishment” and “disproportionate retaliation” in Gaza, killing tens of thousands of Gazans since 2023 and nearly halving the life expectancy of the area’s residents. Readers seeking context to the awful headlines from the region should seek out this thought-provoking book.
Robust research underpins this judicious record of Palestinian life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781324105954
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 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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