A deeply thoughtful study geared for the lay reader.
A rare lucid take on the turmoil in Pakistan by a former State Department official.
A longtime Foreign Service diplomat, Schmidt (International Affairs/George Washington Univ.) served in Pakistan in the late ’90s. Here he offers a cogent analysis of the havoc caused by a nettlesome concoction of feudal lords, strong military, American pressure and radical Islamist factions all vying for dominance. Essentially, he writes, the nation was created as a Muslim entity in opposition to India, and that all its subsequent policies, especially in relation to Kashmir and Afghanistan, reflect that essential insecurity and resentment. With India in mind, the Pakistanis supported the Afghani mujahideen against Soviet aggression, and later modeled its own insurgent elements (enlisted to foment rebellion against India in Kashmir) on the success of that highly selective, motivated group of insurgents. However, these radical Islamist groups, once tolerated because of their ability to execute overseas plans, quickly grew out of control and began to destabilize Pakistani society and government—e.g., through terrorist threats by Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of the Pure”), responsible for the Mumbai bombing and numerous others. Moreover, Pakistan’s eager acceptance of American financial support and capitulation to American interests have come under deep suspicion by both the Pakistani people (only a small percentage of whom consider themselves fundamental Islamist) and American government—especially underscored by the revelations of Osama bin Laden’s sheltering for years in a compound near Islamabad. Schmidt’s various scenarios sound rather naïve now, with Pakistan exploding in anger after the assassination of bin Laden, but the author makes a sound case in presenting the complex ramifications resulting from the instability introduced into the country after 9/11, when the United States forced Pakistan to choose between supporting the Taliban or U.S. interests, and subsequently drove al-Qaeda onto Pakistani soil.
A deeply thoughtful study geared for the lay reader.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-28043-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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 Yorker staff 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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
