A vivid account that has something to please most WWII buffs.
World War II as told through the annals of the Associated Press.
Not much in this compendium will come as a surprise to readers familiar with the history of the last great global war, but there are plenty of illuminating behind-the-scenes moments: the fact, for instance, that upon the entry of the U.S. into the war, an AP executive editor went to work as the Roosevelt administration’s director of censorship, hanging a sign the day after Japan’s surrender that read “out of business.” The book demonstrates the openness of the American press, despite that official censorship, in publishing forthright descriptions of battles and their aftermaths: “American combat casualties increased 1,855 during the past week, raising the combined army-navy total to 1,060,727 since the start of the war.” Those numbers are even more meaningful in context. As the text notes, 16 million Americans served in the war and, with them, 1,600 war correspondents. The language of the AP reports is often clinical, sometimes repetitive—e.g., Gen. Henry Arnold’s admission that the air forces lost 60 Flying Fortress bombers and nearly 600 crew members in a single raid on a German industrial city, but that only served to indicate “the importance which the Nazis attached to his ball bearing industry at Schweinfurt.” Students of language will be interested to note that correspondents regularly attached racial epithets to the Japanese but not the German or Italian enemies and that they brought over the term doughboy, widely thought to have been used only in World War I: “There was singing and dancing and music on the banks of the Elbe today as doughboys of Gen. Hodges’ First Army and jubilant troops of Marshal Ivan Konev’s First Ukrainian Army celebrate the historic junction symbolizing the defeat of Nazi Germany.” Many of the photographs, such as Joe Rosenthal’s image of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, are iconic, but refreshingly, there are numerous lesser-known images as well.
A vivid account that has something to please most WWII buffs.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4549-4116-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
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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