An enthralling introduction to one of the defining events of the 20th century.
A memoir, written sometime between September 1914 and May 1915, recollects the chaotic beginning of World War I.
In June 1914, T. Tileston Wells, an attorney from New York, set out by sea for Europe with his wife, Georgina; his 18-year-old son; and his 11-year-old daughter. Later that same month, while Wells was in Paris, a Serbian national assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, the spark that ultimately led to the Great War. Initially, Wells was reluctant to leave Paris, but his wife was confident no war would come, so they embarked for Austria by train. However, in July, Austria issued an ultimatum to Serbia, and while the family was vacationing in Cortina, Austria-Hungary officially declared war. The following month, while Wells was touring Riva, Germany and Russia began their conflict, and he was briefly arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy. He was traveling without a passport—common at the time—but thankfully, he had an introductory letter from William Jennings Bryan, then the U.S. secretary of state. The U.S. Congress appropriated considerable funds to help rescue Americans stuck in Europe at the time, but efforts at rescue were woefully incompetent; meanwhile, banks in Venice, where Wells applied for a passport, weren’t disbursing funds. Wells was eventually able to make to it to Rome in September, right before Benedict XV was selected as the new pope. Soon after, he and his family left Naples on the SS Canopic, which ultimately transported them to Boston. Wells later became a fierce advocate for Serbian relief and the Romanian consul general to America. Kelly (Italy Invades, 2015), Wells’ great-grandson, writes a thoughtful introduction to this remembrance and provides a running editorial commentary that consistently furnishes edifying information about Wells and the war. Wells’ interpretations of the grand history unfolding around him are consistently insightful and prescient and sometimes historically controversial; for example, he contends that Serbia warned Austria of the plan to murder the archduke. It’s fascinating to see a firsthand witness’s account of the war’s start as well as his interpretation of its causes. It’s also thrilling to follow Wells’ attempt to steward his family back to the relative safety of the United States. This is historical scholarship at its best: rigorous, testimonial, and dramatic.
An enthralling introduction to one of the defining events of the 20th century.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 154
Publisher: History Invasions Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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