An intriguing, enlightening, often disheartening but occasionally hopeful tour of the Middle East, focusing on militant Islam. Veteran New York Times correspondent Judith Miller (One by One: Facing the Holocaust, 1990) has been reporting from the Middle East for more than two decades, writing about Islam's rush to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of secular Arab nationalism. She profiles ten countries, from Algeria in the west to Iran in the east, attempting to explain historically and politically how each country arrived at its often perilous and sometimes tragic present. There is much to be depressed about in Miller's book: Sudan, truly hell on earth; Egypt, falling back on brutality to suppress Islamic militancy when it fumbled more reasonable alternatives; Algeria, where the religious and secular are in open war. In virtually every country, there is some form of violent Islamic militancy at work, and governments have tried with varying success to either coopt or repress the movement. Miller, critical of violations of civil and human rights, concedes that Syria's President Hafez al-Assad has dealt with the militants more effectively than anyone else, by terrifying away their potential followers with his 1982 massacre of thousands of people in the town of Hama following an uprising. But Miller also argues that militant Islam is far less homogeneous than commonly depicted, and could yet evolve toward a more pragmatic, less absolutist philosophy. Ironically, Miller sees reason for hope in Iran, ruled by Islamic militants since 1979. She finds there a lively and surprisingly open debate about whether religious leaders are necessarily the people best suited ``to build a car or stabilize a monetary system.'' Miller's writing is rich and detailed, and her vivid profiles of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Jordan's King Hussein are themselves worth the price of the book. A nuanced examination of Islamic militancy, crammed with information, that puts this growing movement and its most horrible terrorist manifestations into invaluable context.
Pub Date: May 8, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-80973-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1996
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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