This may prove to be an important book for students of “counterfactual” history, but only occasionally does this story about...
Was World War I an inevitable disaster looking for a catalyst? Not so, writes On Point news analyst Beatty (Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, 2007, etc.) in this intermittently illuminating but deeply frustrating new history.
What happened is well known. After Serbian terrorist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, pieces locked in place that engaged the major powers in a catastrophic war. Austria, backed by Germany, declared war on Serbia, which was backed by Russia; soon, Russia’s ally France entered the fray, as did Britain. After years of trying to stay out of it, the United States was pulled in when it looked as if Mexico was going to try to reclaim parts of Texas. Things could have easily been different, writes Beatty, as the countries involved were all locked in internal struggles that could have taken different outcomes, and Princip’s bullet could have easily missed and struck another target—if it had, the living Ferdinand would not have argued for war. Not only that, but he would have acceded to the throne following Austria-Hungary’s Emperor Franz Joseph’s death in 1916, and would likely have been too embroiled in civil strife to deal with a war with Serbia. Once war was engaged, it was kept alive by press censorship in the countries involved. The French, English and Germans did not know the scale of suffering endured by their soldiers, and may not have wanted to. By the time the U.S. joined in 1917, it only prolonged the struggle. A post-Armistice food blockade starved Germany, and the children of that war would unite under the father figure of Adolf Hitler. The author provides a well-researched, compelling thesis, but the narrative lacks strong portraiture, the motivations aren’t always made clear and the drama, except in rare instances, remains on a simmer.
This may prove to be an important book for students of “counterfactual” history, but only occasionally does this story about a world going up in flames ever ignite.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8027-7811-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
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
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 2025 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.
