The most complete and wide-ranging of recent biographies of Sherman, of interest to all students of the Civil War.
A thoroughgoing biography of William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), the steely, intellectually gifted Civil War general.
Did Sherman really say “War is hell”? His son said that his father’s true statement, made to the mayor of a devastated Atlanta in 1864, was “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it.” Either way, Sherman knew whereof he spoke. Graduating from West Point near the top of his class academically but knocked down by demerits—“He dressed carelessly,” writes noted Civil War historian Reid, “saluted slovenly or not at all, and used his disregard of the rules as a means of winning laddish approbation from his peers”—Sherman entered the service as an artilleryman but was pushed into the commissary corps. There he learned to dig deep into every logistical consideration of how a war should be executed: what supplies were needed and where, how many wagons it would take to get them there, how many bullets would be fired, and so forth. That mastery served him well as an officer who suffered several depressing defeats during the Civil War, including a near disaster in the siege of Vicksburg. Nonetheless, he became one of Ulysses S. Grant’s favored officers, succeeding him after the war as chief general of the U.S. Army. Reid looks closely at Sherman’s analytical skills while taking issue with certain popular depictions of him. For example, Sherman has been accounted a heartlessly cruel avenger in Southern depictions of his March to the Sea, where in truth “the absence of violence…needs to be underlined,” at least as far as civilians were concerned. Reid also acquits his subject of the razing of South Carolina’s capital, which he holds was the result of an accidental fire that “overwhelmed Columbia’s small firefighting capacity.” Despite occasionally dry prose, the author’s capable blending of biographical facts with larger issues makes his study particularly valuable.
The most complete and wide-ranging of recent biographies of Sherman, of interest to all students of the Civil War.Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-539273-9
Page Count: 632
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
