In a comprehensive reinterpretation of the role of barbaric tribes in Roman history, Wolfram (History/Univ. of Vienna) seeks to ``trace the beginnings of a history of the Germans'' by examining in depth the role of the Germanic tribes in the development, transformation, and collapse of the Roman Empire. Wolfram takes issue with the conventional view that the Germanic peoples precipitated the decline of Rome, arguing instead that they unremarkably ``made a home for themselves within'' the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, his detailed survey makes clear the breathtaking transformation wrought by the Germanic tribes: At first simply alien ``new peoples'' who at the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 a.d. seemed subjugated like the Gauls before them, Germanic tribes, particularly the Franks, Alamanni, and Goths, began attacking the Roman frontier with vigor and increasing success in the early third century. After gaining territory along the Rhine, they won further territorial concessions in return for military allegiance to Rome. After the sackings of Rome in the fifth century, Christianized Germanic tribes blended Roman with barbaric influences, creating a distinctive culture that dominated the continent. Wolfram details the pervasive influence of Germanic tribes on the growth of early medieval Europe, including the development of Visigothic, Vandalic, Burgundian, Frankish, and Longobard kingdoms on Roman soil; the 100-year kingdom of Toulouse, which codified and helped perpetuate Roman law in the West; the dominance of North Africa for over 100 years by the Arian Christian Vandals; and the defeat and probable absorption of the Huns by the Germanic peoples. Despite himself, Wolfram establishes that the Germanic nations arose from the darkness of prehistory to transform the great culture of Rome and in so doing set the stage for the emergence not only of Christendom, but also ultimately of Germany and the other nation-states of Europe.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-520-08511-6
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
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
