A sharp, riveting depiction of “what Martin Luther King called the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s...
A short but dynamic account of the landmark 1963 protest march that ended with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Euchner (Writing/Yale Univ.; Little League, Big Dreams: Inside the Hope, the Hype and the Glory of the Greatest World Series Ever Played, 2006, etc.) masterfully paints what he calls a “pointillist portrait” of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on Aug. 28, 1963. Drawing from interviews and diligent research, the author not only provides humanizing portraits of the major figures—including King, activist Bayard Rustin and march organizer A. Philip Randolph—he also effectively portrays ordinary marchers, both black and white. He accomplishes this through a kaleidoscopic collection of telling details, many of which serve to bring the often overly idealized March on Washington into focus. Euchner relates the friction among leaders of the civil-rights movement (Malcolm X ridiculed the March as the “Farce on Washington”); how a prominent Catholic leader nearly pulled out of the event because he felt activist John Lewis’s speech was too radical; how expert sabotage of an expensive sound system caused a last-minute crisis; and how some of King’s advisors urged him not to use his “I Have a Dream” speech, which they felt was trite. The author also engagingly portrays the rank-and-file marchers, combining inspirational stories—including that of an old black man, Joseph Freeman, who left Washington after escaping a racist mob in 1919, returning in 1963 for the march—with well-chosen, seemingly banal details, such as the fact that protesters on buses in Harlem complained loudly about the lack of air conditioning. Most impressive is Euchner’s amazing economy in telling this story; in just over 200 pages, he provides a wholly satisfying, comprehensive view of the March.
A sharp, riveting depiction of “what Martin Luther King called the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s history.”Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0059-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
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
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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