Inspiring stories of women warriors who deserve greater attention.
A chronicle of a group of courageous women whose contributions to World War II “put comic book heroines to shame.”
“The story of the war will never be fully or fairly written if the achievement of women in it are untold,” writes Eder, a retired Army major general, in the introduction to this enthusiastic collection of their exploits. Most did not seek fame and were not “trailblazers by choice,” but readers will share the author’s outrage upon learning that many were deliberately written out of history and treated badly even as they served. When the Air Force began accepting women for flight training in 1976, it announced proudly that this was the first time it had permitted women to fly; angry Women Airforce Service Pilot veterans pointed out the error. These included Ola Mildred Rexroat, who joined in 1944, trained, and flew for the Air Force within the U.S. Like all WASPs, she was denied military status, paid less than male pilots, and ineligible for veteran’s benefits until 1977. Perhaps Eder’s most famous character, Virginia Hall, risked her life in Nazi-occupied Europe, first for Britain’s Secret Operations Executive, and then the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, despite being easily identifiable because of her limp. Alice Marble, the world’s amateur tennis champion, was shot while carrying out a successful espionage operation in Switzerland. Throughout the war, nurses played an essential role, and Katherine Nolan’s experiences in a field hospital make gripping reading. Other important women assembled the first computers that cracked complex Axis codes (see Liza Mundy’s Code Girls), drew essential maps, or risked and often lost their lives in the resistance. Several of Eder’s women simply survived imprisonment or concentration camps, no mean feat. The author fills her accounts with invented dialogue and novelistic thoughts, but her subjects worked hard, often behaving heroically and suffering for it, so that’s a minor quibble.
Inspiring stories of women warriors who deserve greater attention.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72823-092-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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
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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