A lucid defense of the Constitution, full of contextual information to supplement and broaden basic knowledge.
A well-timed refresher course on the forces at play in the conception, ratification, and amendment of this revered (and sometimes reviled) document.
Don’t be deceived by the catchy title; this is not one of those cutesy lists from Buzzfeed or other social media outlets. It is a well-documented treatise on the importance of the Constitution that includes 18 pages of sources and 230 endnotes. All too often in our schools, study of the Constitution involves rote memorization of the end result. As Kurdas (Ponzi Regulation, 2014, etc.) ably demonstrates, however, it is not monolithic, but instead the product of great compromise among the founders of the nation: “They negotiated between North and South, states and federal power, freedom and governance, popular will and elite authority, bureaucrats and elected officers, race and union, national glory and individual wellbeing.” The author is at her best in such moments; she displays a sharp talent for concise renderings of complex matters. Of special interest are the final two chapters, which address the treatment of Native Americans and the issue of slavery as areas where the Constitution has been severely tested. With regard to the former, she summarizes: “In the sorry history of Indians versus the U.S., Jeffersonian-Jacksonian democracy proved to be oppressive, and only that creature of the Adamsite balance of powers, Marshall’s Court, supported the justice of Indian claims.” This sentence may seem daunting out of context, but attentive readers, led by the framework Kurdas has constructed, will make the necessary connections and understand its meaning. It is also in this section that the author devotes considerable space to Sam Houston, a unique figure whose role in history is perhaps not as well-known as it should be outside of Texas. If there is a drawback in this work, it appears right at the end, when Kurdas considers the current political climate and reveals her views on the debates surrounding the Second Amendment (should be defended at all costs with no room for compromise) or same-sex marriage (should be decided by a popular vote). To her credit, up until this point, she keeps her analysis relatively evenhanded, which is not an easy thing to do.
A lucid defense of the Constitution, full of contextual information to supplement and broaden basic knowledge.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5376-8408-6
Page Count: 218
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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