An immensely effective audit of how and why the Old World's aristocratic leaders failed to keep the peace during the summer of 1914. Jannen, a lawyer and historian, provides a riveting day-by-day account of the diplomatic and military machinations that began on June 28 when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's throne was assassinated in Sarajevo and ended early in August with all of Europe (save Italy) embroiled in WW I. The author first reviews events leading up to that critical period: the commercial rivalries, recurrent crises, and largely defensive alliances that by 1914 had divided the Continent into volatile armed camps. Getting down to cases, he notes that Vienna's determination to punish upstart Serbia for the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand (and to halt the spread of Balkan nationalism) was the proximate casus belli. Despite the best efforts of Europe's rulers, however, it was impossible to localize the conflict. Offering vivid reports on the frantic negotiations that preceded Austria's declaration of war, Jannen recounts how Russia (at least tacitly committed to backing fellow Slavs in Belgrade) mobilized its armed forces along the Austrian and German frontiers. Bound by treaty and inclination to support Vienna, Berlin declared war on Russia; two days later, France was added to the list of German foes. Great Britain was drawn in by an 1839 accord with Brussels when the kaiser's troops marched through Belgium on their way to France. By the time the guns of August fell silent more than four years later, millions had died while three dynasties vanished, the map of Europe was rearranged, and precious few spoils went to the victors. An object lesson in history that affords resonant behind-the- scenes perspectives on the games great and small powers play in time of peril. An absorbing and scrupulously documented first book. (photos and maps, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-89141-569-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Presidio/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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
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