Welcome reading in this bisesquicentennial year.
A history of the Declaration of Independence from its composition to the present.
“A constitutional republic is a fragile creation,” writes Hoover Institution fellow Auslin, “for only the people’s adherence to its principles and rules preserves it.” If the Constitution is its user’s manual, the republic is philosophically grounded in the document that Thomas Jefferson, assigned by the Continental Congress, wrote in an inspired two weeks. That grounding is for better and for worse: After all, Jefferson’s first-draft denunciation of the enslavement of “a distant people who never offended him [i.e., King George III],” was cut by committee, foreshadowing the conflict over slavery to come. Indeed, Auslin writes, South Carolina’s rationalization for seceding from the Union in 1860 was directly based on “the language and claims of the Declaration.” North or South, the Declaration of Independence was immediately enshrined in American thought. Auslin does good historical footwork in recounting the reaction of the British press and political class to the document, widely reprinted in British newspapers and both noisily denounced and quietly approved of in Parliament. Auslin also offers an engaging account of the fortunes of the document itself as it moved from place to place, exhibited for years in the State Department’s library and then removed, now badly aged and deteriorating, to first Fort Knox (to protect it in the event of an Axis invasion) and then the Library of Congress. There, Auslin writes, it was enshrined until being transferred to the new National Archives in 1952—and not with resistance from the librarians. Auslin closes with a note on how the Declaration remains an object of veneration and popular interest, with the 2004 movie that lends his book its title driving thousands of visitors to Washington for a look while, at least with luck, “uniting us in a still-radical experiment in republican self-government.”
Welcome reading in this bisesquicentennial year.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781668214541
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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 virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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