An insightful examination of a rarely studied aspect of World War II—the collaboration of Islamic political parties and...
The authors discern “an unbroken chain of terror” linking the spiritual and political leader of the Palestinians for much of the 20th century to Osama bin Laden.
Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895–1974) was a mentor to many modern Islamic fundamentalist and Arab leaders, assert Dalin (Hoover Institute/Stanford Univ.; The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War Against Nazi Germany, 2005, etc.) and Rothmann (Fromm Institute/Univ. of San Francisco). Spotlighting al-Husseini’s ties to Adolf Hitler and efforts to aid the Axis cause during World War II, they view those activities as precursors to radical Islamists’ present-day efforts to destroy Israel and attack the United States. Dalin and Rothmann have done extensive archival research, but their book is not a piece of sophisticated scholarship. They tend to dismiss the arguments of al-Husseini and his followers out of hand and take reflexively pro-Israel positions. At least their discussion of al-Husseini’s work with Hitler is evidence-based, which is more than can be said about later chapters. Trying to draw a direct line from al-Husseini to Muslim leaders of the modern era, the authors offer questionable broad-brush analysis. “For the young Saddam Hussein, the mufti’s vision of radical Islam was inspirational,” they write, “and others like Saddam Hussein came to regard the mufti as both hero and mentor.” They decline to note that Hussein, while strongly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, ran a secular government sometimes at odds with Islamic fundamentalists. Dalin and Rothmann also engage in more speculation than is usually found in history books. Phrases such as “it is not impossible to imagine” are sprinkled throughout, and they include a chapter about where al-Husseini’s imagination might have taken him if he had envisioned what it would be like if Hitler had won the war.
An insightful examination of a rarely studied aspect of World War II—the collaboration of Islamic political parties and Middle East regimes with the Nazis—quickly evolves into a brief for the neoconservative worldview.Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6653-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2008
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
