A brilliant, fascinating picture of how wars badly begun and poorly run can affect an entire country—usually at the hands of...
Military historian Moten (co-author: Between War and Peace: How America Ends Its Wars, 2011, etc.), former head of the history department at West Point, traces the long struggle of presidents to assert their power over recalcitrant generals.
George Washington was adamant that as president, he was only to assert policy, not fight wars. When fear of war with the French caused President John Adams to put him in charge of the army again, he changed his tune, insisting that he would be subordinate, not subservient, and demanding the right to pick all his own generals, especially Alexander Hamilton. He also insisted that he would not be active until a crisis appeared, effectively turning the army over to Hamilton, who was much detested by Adams. Moten beautifully exposes the battles and the alliances between men controlling the country’s future. Certainly, Abraham Lincoln was all over the spectrum, with his inability to get George McClellan to do much of anything offset by Ulysses Grant’s effective action. The author explains the workings of war, the effects and dangers of standing armies, and the growth of the president’s Cabinet-level military advisers. All presidents admit that war, once begun, takes on a life of its own, but generals who begin to make policy overstep their duty. Gen. Douglas MacArthur is a prime example. Harry Truman suffered his arrogance, but “when the president mistrusts or fears one of his senior commanders, that officer’s relief is already overdue.” Moten doesn’t mince words regarding MacArthur, who went on speaking tours while still in service, “soiling his uniform and besmirching his profession with vitriol directed against his commander in chief.” The author’s opinions are precise and witty and based on comprehensive knowledge of his subject, as he clearly demonstrates how wars are lost by the arrogant and/or incompetent.
A brilliant, fascinating picture of how wars badly begun and poorly run can affect an entire country—usually at the hands of just a few men.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0674058149
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
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 moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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