Rich instruction for policymakers, soldiers, and politics junkies alike.
A clear-eyed portrait of American military culture, and a subtle critique of the civilian leadership that governs the armed forces.
Washington Post military affairs reporter Priest has clearly spent a great deal of time among warriors; she writes not only from the corridors of the Pentagon and the briefing rooms of faraway theaters of operations, but also from the pillboxes, bunkers, and command posts very near to where the bullets are flying. At the heart of her study lies a subject of great debate: How can fighters whose mission is to kill people, break things, and, in the words of one warrior, commit massive “hate crimes” be put into the essentially diplomatic role of nation-building and peacekeeping? This question now divides the military and its civilian overseers, though it was nothing new in the time of Eisenhower and Truman, who thought nothing whatever of putting the army to work rebuilding Europe and Japan and “reestablishing political life at the local level,” such as the military recently tried to do in Kosovo and Bosnia. Yet the current leadership, headed by an apparently unengaged George W. Bush and a perhaps too-engaged Donald Rumsfeld (who, by Priest’s account, is none too beloved in the Pentagon, yet respected for actually having served in the military, unlike many in the previous administration), has little interest in nation-building or making the world safe for democracy, a matter troubling to some American warriors in Afghanistan who believed that such work was the only way to keep the fighting from starting all over again. (“You promised many things for Afghanistan,” one mujahadeen remarks to an American officer, “and we want you to keep your promise.”) Profiling members of the highest command echelons as well the dirtiest-trousered of frontline troops, Priest does a fine job of exploring some of the contradictions involved in maintaining a citizen army and keeping peace in a world bent on killing itself.
Rich instruction for policymakers, soldiers, and politics junkies alike.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-393-01024-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
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