A fascinating, if unwieldy, treatise on how racism and nation building influenced educational practices in America.
A scholarly account of education in 19th-century America.
Most historical accounts of the ideas, goals, and practices that gave rise to public education in America focus on the schooling of white children—the settler class, which was primarily European and Christian. A professor of education and of African and African American studies at Harvard, Givens braids that familiar story with contemporaneous ideas and approaches to educating Black and Indigenous children, which reveals not only the racist attitudes of the day, but also ulterior motives such as securing tribal lands and forestalling violent uprisings—key aspects of nation building. Givens describes government efforts to dictate whom would be taught what. A striking contrast existed before the Civil War: Education was widely outlawed for Black people, while the first boarding schools were launched for Indigenous children with federal funds. The rationales for these opposing programs expose associated goals. For instance, the building of schools for Indian children was overseen by the War Department to help avert future Indian wars. Additionally, “domesticating” Native Americans—so that they would settle down and farm—would facilitate Western expansion. Being regarded as intellectually inferior, Black people were prevented from learning to read and write, which also minimized the chances that enslaved people would liaise and foment resistance. The author grounds his chronicle with individual stories, including those of Margaret Douglass, who was convicted of teaching free Black children in Virginia, and James McDonald, a Choctaw boy who was taught by Quaker missionaries and became a poster boy for Native schooling. The chapters progress in a looping way through the 19th century, with Givens reminding the reader how prevailing attitudes toward Black and Indigenous people justified unequal treatment and how affiliate goals further influenced educational practices. These reminders make some of the reading repetitive, but on the whole the book is a worthy study of how the nation set about schooling Black and Native children.
A fascinating, if unwieldy, treatise on how racism and nation building influenced educational practices in America.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780063259157
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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