Deeply personal stories that track real soldiers through conditions of trying morale.
A patriotic though unsentimental look at the major wars fought by the United States as told through the difficult experiences of ordinary soldiers.
Arizona Sen. McCain and his longtime staffer and co-author Salter (Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them, 2007, etc.) again sound the themes of courage and honor represented by the regular Americans of all branches of the military who fought for their country from the Revolutionary War to the Iraq War, circa 2006. From the first soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin, who enlisted in Gen. George Washington’s army at age 15 and served the duration of the War of Independence, the authors emphasize the deprivations and confusion of war over the hollow declarations of “glorious triumph over adversity.” McCain and Salter use Martin’s own late-life memoir to pepper the details of military life—e.g., being commanded at one point by the Marquis de Lafayette and suffering the cold and hunger of the winter of 1779 at Morristown, which prompted Martin’s regiment to mutiny in May 1780. George Roberts, an African-American seaman, represented one of the 15 to 20 percent of black sailors in the U.S. Navy during the War of 1812, serving with distinction but under segregated conditions and restricted liberty. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., son of the famous Boston professor and essayist, was an idealistic Harvard student who fought bravely with his Massachusetts regiment for the Union and was profoundly changed by the bloodshed of the Civil War. Other notable soldiers include Maj. Gen. Littleton “Tony” Waller, who refused to fulfill an order to slaughter the Philippine natives during a battle of the Spanish-American War in Manila in 1898 and was court-martialed; and Guy Gabaldon, who, while battling on the Pacific island of Saipan during World War II, convinced many Japanese to surrender rather than commit suicide.
Deeply personal stories that track real soldiers through conditions of trying morale.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1476759654
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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