An engaging celebration of public service through the stories of groundbreaking civic leaders.
A veteran of municipal government highlights dynamic pioneers of the Progressive Era.
In this history book, Dykstra (co-author: Pinery Boys, 2017, etc.) draws inspiration from her years of work in New York City government agencies and traces the modern concept of public service to its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The volume profiles 13 aspects of good governance, from a newly formed state’s duty to care for children to the battles involved in developing an efficient system of public transportation, and focuses on the civic leaders who shaped each cause. Few of the individuals featured are household names, though many are famous within their fields—William Mulholland established the Los Angeles water system; Charles Horace Mayo and his brother, William James Mayo, founded the Mayo Clinic and led public health efforts—while others are less well-known, like sanitation czar George Waring and school superintendent Ella Flagg Young. In occasionally vivid prose (“At 46th Street and the East River, one notorious pile of horseshit, 30 feet high and 200 feet long, sat in an empty lot and poisoned the air for 30 blocks”), the author transports readers to the unhealthy, unsafe, and frequently corrupt environments that the reform-minded bureaucrats of the period confronted and makes a compelling case for the lasting value of their work. A useful chapter summarizes the conclusions drawn from this study of reformers—they share curiosity, perseverance, and communication skills, among other traits. Dykstra acknowledges the lack of racial diversity in her subjects and points out some of their misdeeds, like Melvil Dewey’s (“a complicated, unlikeable genius”) harassment of women. But on the whole, the book’s innovators are applauded (though the author finds it necessary to write of social investigator Frances Kellor’s relationship with her female partner of many decades “it is not known if their relationship was sexual”). Despite its limitations, the volume is a solid examination of civic engagement in a foundational era that presents an informative and engrossing introduction to key individuals.
An engaging celebration of public service through the stories of groundbreaking civic leaders.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 225
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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