The United States’ war in the Philippines is largely forgotten; this account, drawing parallels with more recent conflicts, should help bring it back into focus.
Military historian Arnold (Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq, 2009, etc.), begins with the arrival in Manila of Gen. Leonard Wood, who had been appointed governor of Moro Province, the southernmost portion of the Philippines. The Spanish, who had governed the islands for nearly 500 years, had been able to do little with the province, where a predominantly Muslim population refused to be assimilated. Wood, like most of the Americans who would serve there, arrived with very little knowledge of his new post. The Moros, whose history was one of conflict between local leaders called datus, were wily close-range fighters whose chosen weapons were a variety of wicked blades, notably the kris, which every male carried in his sash. The American troops’ superior firepower made it an unequal fight, but the intractable jungles often nullified that advantage. Arnold recounts how for 10 years, Wood and his successors, John J. Pershing and Tasker Bliss, searched for ways to pacify the Moros. The author also gives detailed accounts of the many battles. American troops faced violent attacks by individual Moros who had decided to become martyrs, killing as many Americans as possible in the process. But the Americans gradually began to gain control of the province, partly by enlisting both Moros and northern Filipinos as auxiliary troops, or “scouts.” While the war as a whole was not a matter of set battles, the futility of the Moro resistance was most clearly shown in two actions—massacres, really—at Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak. Ultimately, the Moro War became the main training ground for the officers who went to France in World War I, and Arnold concludes by tracing their subsequent careers. A lively, well-told chronicle of a conflict that commanders in more recent conflicts could well have from studying.
Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60819-024-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
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