Astute and immensely readable.
A clear-eyed, poignant study of the political developments in Lebanon since the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005.
Daily Star opinion editor Young, who interviewed many of the main protagonists involved in Lebanon’s unfolding tragedy as part of his writing for the Wall Street Journal and other publications, titles his work after the Beirut crossroads that became a magnet for a growing demonstration of public outrage following al-Hariri’s death by car bomb, widely believed to be the hand of Syria, which had dominated the country during the previous three decades. A determinedly pluralistic country, Lebanon was devastated by the 15-year civil war beginning in 1974. Then, Palestinian groups, expelled from Jordan, relocated to Beirut and exacerbated Christian and Syrian hostilities, eventually provoking Israeli invasion, which in turn nourished the growth of Hezbollah, uneasily tied to Iran. Young, a self-described “product of the war years,” recognizes the “dysfunctional” quality to the Lebanese way of doing things, but sees a strength rather than weakness in its sectarianism. The Independence Intifada, which had galvanized around Martyrs Square in the summer of 2005, brought together “a perfect merging of interests” in the popular opposition to the hegemony of Syria. Young pursues these hopeful events, dashed by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s “reckless provocation” of Israeli bombardment in 2006, in an attempt to regain what the party, and Syria, had lost the previous year. In examining the subsequent assassinations, sectarian violence and public cries for justice that erupted following al-Hariri’s assassination, the author ably navigates the tangle of oligarchs that helped bring the country to its present situation, including the recent elections that demonstrate the Lebanese yearning for stability.
Astute and immensely readable.Pub Date: April 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9862-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
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
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 2025 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.
