by Mark Coburn ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 31, 1993
A folksy, unpretentious view of the Civil War exploits of the crusty warrior who's become identified with the harsh rationalization and ruthless practice of total war. In the view of many, Coburn (English/Fort Lewis College) says, ``General Sherman was like Attila the Hun, but less cuddly.'' The author suggests, though, that the view of Sherman as barbarian is simplistic, and that the general was more interested in destroying property of potential military value to the Confederates than in taking civilian lives. Coburn also contends that, unlike many Civil War commanders who ordered suicidal frontal assaults, Sherman constantly sought to preserve the lives of his own men, and—with a few lapses, like the murderous repulse of Union forces at Kennesaw Mountain—succeeded in doing so. In a colorful, fast-paced account, the author tells of Sherman's march of destruction from Atlanta to the sea, but he argues that the general's march from Savannah to Goldsboro, North Carolina, though less well known, was more destructive, more arduous, and strategically more important. Despite the studied destructiveness of his tactics, Sherman professed to like and admire the South (he headed a Louisiana military school at war's outbreak, and he'd urged his southern friends to desist from secession), and he was actually branded a traitor by Secretary of War Stanton for extending overly generous surrender terms to General Johnston's army. After the war, Sherman garnered new fame as the leader of America's Indian-fighting constabulary and as the author of one of the Civil War's most penetrating memoirs. Despite an incongruous informality (Coburn refers to Sherman throughout as ``Cump,'' a childhood nickname used by only a few intimates): a generally superb account of the lively personality and impressive, if sometimes disturbing, military achievements of one of the Civil War's most important strategists. (Sixteen illustrations, six maps—not seen) (Military Book Club Main Selection)
Pub Date: May 31, 1993
ISBN: 0-7818-0156-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
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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by Ta-Nehisi Coates ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2015
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
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The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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