An impressive anthology of the works of an understudied American radical.
The public remarks and writings of radical minister Hugh O. Pentecost take center stage in this anthology.
“Historians have not paid much attention” to the life of radical orator Pentecost, writes editor and independent historian Helms in an introduction. Although his name pops up in myriad late-19th-century reform movements—from socialism to the Georgist single tax movement—there have been few in-depth scholarly studies of the minister, lawyer, and popular orator. Helms convincingly argues that the Pentecost’s marginalization is, in part, because he’s an enigmatic figure whose passions and careers changed over time. For instance, although he’s most often associated with turn-of-the-century American anarchism, Pentecost “almost never accepted the word ‘anarchist’ to describe himself.” Beyond the book’s well-researched introductory essay on Pentecost’s life, legacy, and family tree, it is a fine compilation of more than 120 of his sermons, which put his radical positions and charismatic style on full display. “Murder by Law” (1889) for instance, critiques capital punishment, comparing state-sponsored executions to the atrocities “committed by Jack the Ripper,” as they represent the “worst possible kind of murder, because it is done with deliberation.” “Ballots, or Bullets?,” also from 1889, advocates for unrestrained pacifism, arguing that regardless of any positive outcomes that results from war, such as American independence from Britain, “It is better to suffer a thousand wrongs for a thousand years than to right them by war,” as violence represents “the primal outrage upon individual liberty and human brotherhood.” Helms, the current editor of website Dead Anarchists and previous editor of the annotated memoirs of Jewish anarchist Chaim Weinberg (Forty Years in the Struggle, 2009), draws on his deep knowledge of American anarchist movements to provide ample editorial footnotes that offer context to each of Pentecost’s sermons. At more than 800 pages, this is an imposing chronological compilation of material from a variety of sources; however, it lacks an index for readers interested in specific topics.
An impressive anthology of the works of an understudied American radical.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781642510560
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Frayed Edge Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2024
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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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