A sweeping, stunning account of our place in the cosmos and its place in us.
Taking the wide view.
From the ancients to the Newtonians, humans found comfort in the regularities of the heavens—the rising and setting of the sun, the steady light of the fixed stars. But the invention of telescopes in the 17th century revealed more erratic changes in the cosmos, arrhythmias in the scheme of things that spurned the steady cycles of wake and sleep, sow and harvest. In this gorgeously illustrated, richly researched book, Degroot, an environmental historian at Georgetown University, explores the ways in which “real or perceived changes in cosmic environments shaped affairs on Earth.” In the late 1700s, the astronomer William Herschel discovered that the sun’s brightness is inconstant and that changes in solar output can affect our weather and food production. Solar storms turned out to wreak havoc on technology. A 1967 burst of radio waves that scrambled U.S. radar stations left Air Force officers thinking the Soviets had jammed their equipment. Space weather can mean the difference between war and peace, but, on the flip side, Degroot suggests, our understanding of space is itself a reflection of earthly sociopolitical and cultural concerns. Tracing fascinating tales of astronomers, scientists, and reporters who conjectured the existence of massive cities, forests, and even beavers on the Moon, Degroot reveals that they were seeing their own zeitgeist through their telescopes. When, for instance, scientists saw canals on Mars, powerful El Niño and La Niña events on Earth were causing massive droughts that killed millions. “The idea that Martians had engineered their planet to survive the ultimate drought naturally captured widespread attention, and, for a while, convinced many scientists,” Degroot writes. His historical analysis is so persuasive that, when he espouses a kind of techno-utopian vision of space exploration at the book’s end, it’s hard not to read that, too, as a reflection of the hopes and anxieties of our present age.
A sweeping, stunning account of our place in the cosmos and its place in us.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780674986503
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
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
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