A pertinent historical study of “a dangerous combination of complacency and complicity.”
A fresh analysis of fascism in 1930s Britain.
Using the outrageous behavior of Hitler devotee Unity Mitford, the youngest of the Mitford sisters, as a point of reference, Young examines the ingrained fascism of upper-crust British society in the years before World War II. Thanks to newly opened and expanded archives, the author is able to expose a host of fascist-leaning figures during the 1930s, revealing the shockingly broad complacency and complicity among the aristocratic class. As the author shows, the rise of nationalism occurring in Germany after the ravages of World War I was exported to Britain during a similarly vulnerable time. Britain was losing many of its imperial realms, and the communist threat was rampant. Consequently, many in Britain admired Hitler’s strong-armed tactics in controlling inflation and squelching opposition, and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, a British parallel paramilitary operation of antisemitic, right-wing thugs, gained enormous popularity. Diana Mitford, eldest of the five aristocratic, free-willed Mitford sisters, left her marriage to Bryan Guinness to marry Mosley in secret, while her younger sister Unity, drawn magnetically to Hitler, installed herself in Munich until he drew her into his inner circle of sycophants. Meanwhile, the royal family, of German stock, was being recruited by Queen Mary’s cousin, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, all while the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson continued to demonstrate alarming German sympathies—a subject that has been well chronicled elsewhere. Young capably discusses many of the right-wing groups proliferating at the time as well as the long-running currents of antisemitism in Britain and the defeatist nature of Neville Chamberlain’s government. The author also wonders how Unity, followed by British intelligence, could have met “with Hitler more than 140 times between February 1935 and September 1939, espousing Nazi vitriol, without the British government ever taking a real interest.”
A pertinent historical study of “a dangerous combination of complacency and complicity.”Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-293673-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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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