Capably written and argued. Though making some useful observations, however, Greer adds little more than a footnote to the...
The history of WWII has been picked nearly clean, writes veteran Greer, with astounding revelations coming fewer and farther between. In this slender study, he offers a few that, while known to most military historians, may come as news to general readers.
Students of the Pacific War, for instance, probably know the importance of the Battle of the Marianas to the eventual turning of the conflict. Greer nicely connects the battle to some for-want-of-a-nail considerations: the deployment of a new class of vessel, the destroyer escort, afforded the navy a particularly effective antisubmarine weapon. When the Japanese admiral in charge of the theater noticed that several of his submarines had suddenly gone missing, he shifted forces to the south, thereby weakening the front along which the Americans attacked. Similarly, Greer notes, the Doolittle raid on Tokyo, apart from affecting Japanese morale, helped convince the admiralty to shorten its defensive perimeter, which served the American fleet well at Midway and the Solomons—had the line extended farther to the south and east, both battles could have been far costlier for the Allies. The innovative Sherman tank was widely criticized, Greer continues, for its high profile, susceptibility to catching fire thanks to its gasoline engine, and relatively weak main gun; however, he adds, that very engine gave the Sherman an edge over comparatively underpowered German diesel tanks, and, as a descendant of a standard Chrysler truck engine, it was easily mass-produced and easily maintained. "One could well speculate," Greer writes, "whether General Patton's sudden drive north during December 1944 to relieve Bastogne could have arrived in time had he been equipped with German armor of the era."
Capably written and argued. Though making some useful observations, however, Greer adds little more than a footnote to the larger story of WWII.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-595-26435-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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