A solid, occasionally exceptional look at an arid region’s deep footprint.
Population growth and its discontents in the desert.
Few books toggle between natural science and Vegas nightclubs, but that’s what Paoletta does in his sweeping debut. The widely published journalist describes the geologic events that produced New Mexico’s “granulated gypsum” hills and an “andesite peak” in Texas, but he’s mainly concerned with the Southwest’s relatively recent past. He carefully chronicles how Spanish and Anglo newcomers ran roughshod over indigenous peoples and “communities of color.” These sections are nicely written but inevitably derivative. The Santa Fe native is bolder, and more edifying, when focusing on the debate that will define the region’s future. Broadly speaking, one side recognizes the land’s “inherent limitations,” while the other believes that the Southwest’s remarkable economic growth—enabled by huge dams and related infrastructure projects—should proceed apace. The latter outlook, Paoletta explains, was shaped by organizations with vast yet underappreciated influence. In the 1950s, Arizona Highways, a magazine of nature photos and Phoenix fandom, reached 200,000 subscribers, 93% of whom didn’t live in the state. Such boosterism helped triple Arizona’s population in the years after World War II. Surprisingly—yet not without reason—Paoletta argues that Las Vegas is part of the sustainability vanguard. The city may get “drier and drier,” but its water recycling and conservation initiatives place it “among the most efficient municipal water users in the world.” Though Paoletta smartly synthesizes the concerns of the writers, laborers, and others he interviews, he’s not always charitably minded. He writes of “the studied blindness of the colonizer” when describing fellow white people he encounters on a tour of historic houses. Yet the evidence plainly backs his conclusion that the Southwest needs to increase resource conservation and other “communal” practices.
A solid, occasionally exceptional look at an arid region’s deep footprint.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780553387377
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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 short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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