A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous—and disturbing—explanatory power.
A study that explores our polarized politics as a reflection of polarized geographies.
The idea that the United States is a congeries of very different countries isn’t new. Woodard’s welcome twist on the thesis is that the country’s “awkward federation of distinct regional cultures” has led to very different ideas of political organization, an insight he and his research associates back with hard numbers and reams of data. The current turn toward authoritarianism, for instance, is rooted in the Deep South, founded and settled by aristocrats served by enslaved people and underlings, resulting today in “the least democratically minded of the regions, with a history of authoritarian, one‑party rule, and the suppression of dissent.” What Woodard calls New France, embracing southern Louisiana, “has become the most conservative and authoritarian of all the continent’s culture regions, transforming Louisiana from a swing state to a bastion of Trumpism and ethnonationalist sentiment.” Against this are the community-minded, liberal states of the Northeast and the Pacific coast, whose egalitarian traditions extend outward to Hawaii and America’s island empire. Those traditions have interesting sequelae: In terms of gun violence, Hawaii and Greater Polynesia are “the safest culture region of the country,” while the homicide rate of the Deep South is quadruple the rate of New York. Indeed, Woodard adds, “New Netherland is far and away the safest of the large regions, and often safer even than Hawaii, despite being the most densely populated part of our continent.” Oddly, while the Far West is thought of as being Trump country, it is “inhospitable turf for right-wing authoritarians,” as is much of the country. Still, Woodard warns, we need a refreshed civic story of American democracy, “vital not only because democracy really is better than fascism, but also because the consolidation of an ethnonationalist authoritarian regime would almost certainly trigger the physical collapse of this federation.”
A lucid exercise in political geography with tremendous—and disturbing—explanatory power.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593833407
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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 smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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