A provocative, revisionist view of the first years of the Republic.
The distinguished historian examines America’s two original, foundational sins.
By Ellis’ account, the Founding Fathers oversaw and overlooked “two unquestionably horrific tragedies.” The first, of course, was slavery. Virginia, home to Washington and Jefferson, had the largest enslaved population, some 40% of its people. Jefferson, as a junior politician, floated an act that would allow owners to free enslaved people without first petitioning the governor or legislature, but he asked a senior colleague to introduce the bill, only to discover that “anyone even suggesting that emancipation was on the political agenda in Virginia was committing political suicide.” Even though Black soldiers made up some 10% of the Continental Army during the American Revolution—“the only occasion when Blacks and Whites served alongside one another in integrated combat units until the Korean War”—no serious consideration was given to freeing them after the war. The second great tragedy beset the Indian nations of the East, with Washington himself saying that “a truly just Indian policy was one of his highest priorities, that failure on this score would damage his reputation and ‘stain the nation.’” A case in point was the Creek Nation of the Southeast, increasingly pressured after the Revolution, as indeed were other nations beyond the Appalachians, by white encroachment, “a relentless tide that swept all treaties, promises, excellent intentions, and moral considerations to the far banks of history.” The Creek leader, Alexander McGillivray, was of mixed blood, a freedom fighter who held slaves, a power broker and skilled negotiator, but “resolutely anti-American,” and it was only a matter of time before conflict broke out—pitting federal authorities against state militias in an early hint of the Civil War—and the Creeks were removed. Ellis closes with the apt observation that the white supremacy inherent in both tragedies is very much with us today in the “thinly disguised racial prejudice” of the MAGA movement.
A provocative, revisionist view of the first years of the Republic.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780593801413
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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