An earnest and gracefully written, if not especially revelatory, tour of America’s contested memory.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian hits the road to rediscover the nation’s complicated past on the eve of its 250th birthday.
In this expansive blend of travelogue, civic meditation, and cultural history, Gage (G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, 2022) trades the archives for the open road, visiting 13 regions where America has repeatedly defined, and redefined, itself. Beginning at Independence Hall and ending at Disneyland, she moves chronologically through two-and-a-half centuries of aspiration and contradiction. The concept is simple but effective: a road trip as metaphor for the American experiment, full of detours, breakdowns, and instructive wrong turns. Stops include the Alamo, Valley Forge, Chicago’s Haymarket Square, and Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, each prompting reflections on how the stories we tell at historic sites both reveal and obscure national truths. “Traveling the country and learning about history can provide some existential comfort, since it shows that Americans have managed to get themselves out of big messes before. At the very least it makes it harder to say that things today are worse than ever.” A central theme, the possibility of loving one’s country without overlooking its sins, resonates throughout: “Though you wouldn’t necessarily realize it from the state of our political discourse, it’s possible to hold both sets of ideas—to know your history and still love your country.” Yet the book’s genial, professor-on-sabbatical tone sometimes dulls its momentum; the narrative often feels like a series of polished essays more than a genuine journey. When Gage reaches California’s Orange County, her sharpest insights emerge: Disneyland, she observes, “likes to flirt with the past but also to jumble it up and redefine it,” a perfect emblem of American nostalgia as commerce. Despite the occasional flat stretch, Gage writes with clarity and moral conviction; her mix of curiosity, empathy, and civic faith feels both steadying and necessary.
An earnest and gracefully written, if not especially revelatory, tour of America’s contested memory.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033104
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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 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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