Speculative but provocative history.
The early roots of English imperialism, seen through the lens of the objects, animals, and people transported from the New World.
British historian Working focuses on the late 16th and early-17th centuries, when “people, plants, animals, and artefacts from the Americas entered English art and literature for the first time.” Artists painted idealized, unrealistic New World landscapes, playwrights depicted English explorers allying with Indigenous rulers who happily bowed to the splendor of Queen Elizabeth. The English liked to position themselves as benevolent colonizers, more interested in trade and settlement than in looting precious metals and enslaving the natives as the greedy Spanish did, and Working’s elegantly turned prose brings to vivid life the local results of that trade: London apothecary shops redolent with the scents of sassafras from the Carolinas, fashionable ladies in hats made of beaver skins from the Great Lakes region, foppish men with long “lovelocks” like those of Indigenous shamans. “Might have,” “could have,” and “may have” are phrases Working uses a great deal in her effort to give proper credit to the agency of Indigenous people so often neglected in traditional accounts, and her proclaimed intent to trace “the tangible imprints that Indigenous people across the Americas made on Tudor and Stuart society through the things Londoners wore, consumed, and collected” is somewhat at odds with the point she makes (more than once) that in England these objects were stripped of their cultural and spiritual significance. Knowledgeable tributes to the native craftsmanship and belief systems embodied in the artifacts displayed by Renaissance collectors as mere curiosities make clear the extent of that loss, and if Working sometimes reaches for her evidence, her viewpoint is stimulating. The self-serving English declaration that they sought only “friendly, mutually beneficial exchange” was undercut, she writes, by “their yearning for objects—and, increasingly, the lands they came from.” English settlements, including tobacco and cotton plantations that relied on enslaved labor, would prove no less destructive than direct conquest.
Speculative but provocative history.Pub Date: June 2, 2026
ISBN: 9798897100248
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
