An illuminating look at past and present efforts to gaze into the crystal ball.
A history of the future—or better, the many futures that seers and scholars have painted in the past couple of centuries.
“The act of probing into the future need not be predictive to be useful,” writes historian Adamson. Instead, considering what the future might look like can focus attention on the good and bad of the present. Adamson opens with a fascinating, albeit brief, account of weather forecasting, which became more reliable with the advent of the telegraph: as he notes, “a lot of tomorrow’s weather is already here today; it’s just somewhere else, usually a little farther west.” Just so, a string of futurologists of varying stripes, from techno-guru Buckminster Fuller to the fire-and-brimstone evangelist Billy Sunday, turns up here, attempting to gauge the cultural weather to come. Adamson’s narrative is dizzying in its range of reference, taking in the Ghost Dance of the late 19th century and its sad culmination in Wounded Knee; the Afro-futurist jazz of Sun Ra, who inarguably lived at least part time on another planet; the influence of Edward Bellamy’s wooden but nonetheless popular novel Looking Backward and its reverberations in hundreds of other books (including, Adamson suggests, Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court); and the role of futurist predictions in totalitarian movements ranging from Italian fascism to Soviet Bolshevism, to say nothing of the mathematical soullessness of Robert McNamara, which lends credence to Albert Einstein’s maxim, “Anyone who thinks about the future must live in fear and terror.” Futurists remain with us, from the clueless (by Adamson’s measure) Faith Popcorn to the forecasts of singers such as David Byrne and Laurie Anderson: Looking ahead, after all, is “part of what it is to be human,” and Adamson is refreshingly optimistic on that score.
An illuminating look at past and present efforts to gaze into the crystal ball.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781639730230
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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