A brilliant exposé of the uglier undercurrents of American political history.
It’s us versus them—and thus it has ever been.
As Brown University political scientist Morone writes, what many of us find deplorable (or, for some, commendable) in American politics is old hat: “nastiness, violence, intolerance, fraud, twisting the election rules, bashing the government, bias in the media,” and so forth. Today’s partisan politics may seem particularly nasty, but compared with the election of 1800, they’re not so bad. Two issues stand at the dividing line: race and immigration. In the matter of voting rights, for example, “the most intense battles have always blazed around African Americans and immigrants,” and even now powerful forces are afoot to disenfranchise minorities. Astonishingly, notes the author, there is no basic right to vote at the national level, that being punted back to the states, such that at a certain time in history African Americans could vote in New York but not Alabama and women in Arizona but not New York. There’s a reason for the drive to disenfranchise, of course—namely, the “unprecedented configuration” by which “African Americans, immigrants, and women lean to one party, white, native males toward the other.” Morone traces the evolution of that configuration across the broad expanse of American history, charting the divisions between Federalists and Democrats in the early days of the republic, Thomas Jefferson’s winner-take-all solution to Electoral College votes to secure victory for himself, and like topics. He observes that with the election of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, racial and ethnic debates were quieted but did not die, as is obvious today. Morone closes this wide-ranging and readable history by venturing some suggestions on how the “tribal” breakdown of politics might be further reconfigured so that Trumpist ideas are shed for the “big tent” notions of old in the Republican Party. At a more practical level, he urges that voting rights be made automatic and easy: “Register every American when they turn eighteen. No caveats. No paperwork. No convoluted residency tests.”
A brilliant exposé of the uglier undercurrents of American political history.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-465-00244-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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