An important and eye-opening examination of the U.S. military-industrial complex.
Stern’s book shows how precision-guided bombs have shaped warfare in the modern age.
Inspired by encounters with people whose lives have been upended by American bombing campaigns, Stern—author of 2023’s The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War—delves into the development of precision-guided bombs. His research reveals how the evolution of bombs has shaped American foreign policy and determined how and where America goes to war. Tasked with developing a weapon to aid pilots in destroying bridges in Vietnam, Texas Instruments engineer Weldon Word led the team that created the first Paveway, a laser-guided bomb equipped with one of TI’s silicon semiconductor chips. TI’s investment in these chips would revolutionize personal computing and ensure steady funding for the development of future weapons, “building a virtuous cycle in which American schoolkids and office workers were, unbeknownst to them, helping to realize the dream of a perfect, affordable precision bomb.” After the Paveway’s success in Vietnam, Word spearheaded efforts to continue its improvement. The results were Paveways that could adjust direction and reorient themselves after deployment, leading to the “bunker busters” used in Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. Stern demonstrates how presidents reluctant to commit ground troops in combat have increasingly opted for the Paveway’s quick, pinpoint airstrikes, minimizing risks to American forces. But the stories Stern shares of those directly affected by the bombs reveal the long-term results of campaigns in Iraq, Libya, and the Balkans: societal collapse, displaced families, radicalized youth, and retributive violence. What makes Stern’s book particularly powerful is how he juxtaposes these narratives with those of the weapons engineers and politicians who, remaining at a comfortable distance from the carnage, fail to fully appreciate the complexities of any conflict and conflate success with the number of targets eliminated. The Air Force pilot whom Stern profiles deems the Paveway a weapon that’s “beginning to bend war planners to its will,” a chilling assessment at the heart of Stern’s thesis. This book should be required reading for all Americans.
An important and eye-opening examination of the U.S. military-industrial complex.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781524746421
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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