A trenchant piece of biographical writing, giving readers a Frederick’s-eye-view of the mare’s nest of 18th-centruy European...
A commanding and militarily vibrant biography of the peerless Prussian autocrat from one of Britain’s premier generals—and novelists.
Fraser (Knight’s Cross, 1994, etc.) well appreciates that Frederick of Prussia wasn’t called “Great” for nothing: He had intellect and wit, was an adroit diplomat, tolerant, and kept an eye skinned for the interests of the common man (he wanted to be remembered as “King of the Beggars”). He was also perhaps a bit hasty, rash even, although that often served to benefit him as a brave and farsighted commander of his forces. But Fraser ultimately admits that, for all of Frederick’s professed love of justice, there was the “conflict, never resolved, between his belief in the actual advantages of monarchical autocracy (in hands like his own) and his enduring belief—equally sincere—in the rights and dignity of man.” As the author makes plain, the buck stopped with Frederick on all matters (from the new opera house to the decision to invade Austria, again and again and again) and, although he was never one to avoid a confrontation, he was also an exemplar of realpolitik. Fraser turns his attention to all aspects of Frederick’s reign, and there is enough page space for him to dip into everything from court life and Frederick’s writings on political philosophy to his envy of Voltaire. This is a popular account, and if, at times, the writing feels like it is stuffed with feathers (“he introduced the young prince . . . to the possible delights of women”), it must be said that the author is never happier than when getting his teeth into one of Frederick’s frequent military battles—which receive extensive treatment.
A trenchant piece of biographical writing, giving readers a Frederick’s-eye-view of the mare’s nest of 18th-centruy European geopolitics. (16 pp. illustrations)Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-88064-261-0
Page Count: 720
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
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 Yorker staff 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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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