Incisive, often wrenching history of the Palestinians, by Kimmerling (Sociology/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) and Migdal (International Studies/Univ. of Washington). The present status of the Palestinians is a media mainstay, but their history is less well known. Here, Kimmerling and Migdal contend that a Palestinian national identity—like that of most nations—has been forged during the last two centuries, primarily by three events: the brutally quashed 1823 revolt against Egyptian overlords; the revolt against British rule in 1936-39; and the Intifada against Israel, which began in 1987. Starting in the late 19th century, agricultural advances made by Jewish farmers, mechanization, a cash economy, and reliance on world markets marginalized Palestinian farmers. Many became laborers, and, during British rule, an increased deterioration of village life created a landless underclass. The 1936-39 revolt resulted in the exile of the main indigenous Palestinian political institution, the ayan—a group of families that had produced leaders since Ottoman days- -leaving the Palestinians, at the birth of the Israel, without leaders or spokespeople. Between 600,000 and 750,000 Palestinians- -half the population—became refugees, their land taken over by Israelis. And those who stayed, the authors say, became second- class citizens, shunned by other Arabs. Since then, Palestinian efforts to form a political structure have been tied intimately to the goal of gaining a homeland. Kimmerling and Migdal detail the rise of the PLO and the Intifada, which occurred when Palestinians realized that the increasingly harsh occupation of the West Bank would not be temporary, and that they once again were in danger of being pushed aside by Israeli settlers. This revolt has resulted in a fervent sense of community among Palestinians—but also in declining income. A detailed report that provides much-needed context to the Arab-Israeli debate.
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1993
ISBN: 0-02-917321-3
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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