An anthology for those who relish primary source material about the era.
A collection of writing from the 1920s to 1945 describing America’s reaction to Nazism.
Greene, president and librarian at Chicago’s independent Newberry Library, and Phillips, former director of exhibitions at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, have assembled this book from research for the 2018 exhibition celebrating the museum’s 25th anniversary. Countless books have been written about the Holocaust and Nazism, many of them more focused and less dry than this one. Readers of this collection will learn a great deal, but its major market will be university-level students and scholars seeking out specific, handy references for further research and study. In this story, the villain goes down in flames, but there is no happy ending, few heroes, and a great deal of unedifying behavior from almost everyone, world leaders to average Americans. An obscure agitator during the 1920s, Hitler was flamboyant enough to attract American journalistic attention, all unflattering. After 1933, when he assumed power, vivid descriptions of his abuse of Jews filled the media. Americans overwhelming disapproved of Nazi treatment of Jews: 94% according to a 1938 Gallup poll. But, sadly, when asked if the U.S. should allow more Jewish exiles into the country, 72% said no. Many of the official reports from the 1930s tell dismal stories. Though numerous organizations and individuals helped victims of Nazism, American immigrant officials stuck to the strict rules. In one report, it shows that even Germany’s official quota was never filled. The World War II material here reveals that the Holocaust was no secret. Ghastly reports appeared in popular magazines, governments warned Germany of retributions but took no action, and military leaders insisted that winning the war was the best way to stop the Nazis. Popular postwar histories extol America’s compassion, but the story this book tells is more nuanced—and dispiriting: A 1945 Gallup poll revealed that 5% of Americans approved admitting more refugees.
An anthology for those who relish primary source material about the era.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-978821-68-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Rutgers Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
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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