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RUNNING AS A WOMAN

GENDER AND POWER IN AMERICAN POLITICS

A gripping exploration of women as politicians—and a primer for those befuddled by what the ``women's vote'' really is. Witt (a journalist), Paget (a political scientist), and Matthews (History/UC Berkeley) offer an authoritative, detailed exploration of women on the political scene from Jeannette Rankin's bid for Congress in 1916 to the triumph of the self-styled ``Thelma and Louise'' of the 1992 elections—Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. In doing so, the authors blend their expertise seamlessly to illuminate the rocky road of women who have sought political power. Early on, they explain, women in Congress were widows who inherited their husbands' seats. Among the pioneers elected on their own merits were California's Helen Gahagan Douglas, who wheeled a shopping cart into Congress to spotlight economic distress, and Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who wanted no part of being a feminist. But as the women's movement gained strength, more women sought office—though, faced with the burdens of raising money and attacks on their femininity, most tried to blend with male politicians. Later, campaigns of the 1980's played to the ``gender gap.'' The Democrats counted on Geraldine Ferraro's vice-presidential bid to pull the women's vote, but Republican analysts played to women's concerns about the economy and crime, and won. According to the authors, Anita Hill turned that around, and soon women coalesced around women: Checks poured into organizations like Emily's List, which funds women candidates, and women ran and won on women's issues, proclaiming their ``different voice.'' Facts, numbers, and charts add weight to moving anecdotes from women like Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, Texas Governor Ann Richards, and others. What's in the future? The authors predict that as more women enter politics, campaigns will become issue-oriented rather than gender-oriented. Thoughtful personal reflection and nitty-gritty political scheming: an important contribution to the always fascinating story of the scramble for power. (B&w illustrations)

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 1993

ISBN: 0-02-920315-5

Page Count: 300

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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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 Yorker staff 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

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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