A revelatory account of the power and influence of Indigenous peoples in North America.
A historical survey of Native America’s political autonomy.
In this impressive history, DuVal, author of Independence Lost and The Native Ground, offers a long-term view of how Indigenous peoples in North America flourished both before and long after the arrival of Europeans, leveraging their power and negotiating their place alongside or within settler culture amid increasing existential threats. The author covers the last 1,000 years, sketching a trajectory of resistance, adaptability, and endurance and countering other historians who emphasize the victimization and steady disappearance of Indigenous peoples. Focusing on decisive periods involving individual nations, DuVal presents a selection of “examples and trends of Native North American sovereignty, politics, economics, diplomacy, and war.” In doing so, she provides a compelling record of Indigenous agency and provides a rich context for understanding the survival of—and the political challenges still faced by—hundreds of Native nations today. The colonization of the continent, she demonstrates, was neither rapid nor fated, and alternative historical outcomes in which Native America maintained control of large territories are plausible. “Nothing was inevitable,” writes DuVal, “about the rise of the United States.” A highlight of this work is the author’s revision of conventional understandings of the scale of pre-contact Indigenous communities. DuVal points out the sophistication and vitality of urban centers, which resembled their European counterparts in size and population density a millennium ago, before gradually dissolving in response to climatic and political shifts. Also cogent are the author’s summaries of the collective values and traditions that emerged out of this shift to smaller-scale societies. Throughout, DuVal is clear and cogent, and her foregrounding of Indigenous achievements and careful delineation of ongoing struggles for personal and collective autonomy offer a useful and illuminating corrective to past histories.
A revelatory account of the power and influence of Indigenous peoples in North America.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780525511038
Page Count: 752
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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
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