Brisk, thoughtful assessment of the full significance and implications of an episode in British history underappreciated on...
A shrewd analyst of American politics turns his gaze eastward to the Glorious Revolution that placed William and Mary on England’s throne and served as an example to America’s Founders.
Following the English Civil War and the uneasy Restoration of Charles II, James II became king in 1685, determined to make England safe for Catholicism. To this end, he manipulated elections to Parliament, eliminated many representative assemblies and otherwise intemperately exercised royal control. Meanwhile, William of Orange, stadtholder of the United Netherlands and husband of James’s daughter Mary, was determined to oppose the hegemonic ambitions of France’s Sun King. Fearful that James might ally with Louis XIV, William invaded England in 1688 with a force of 500 ships and 15,000 men. Barone (Hard America, Soft America, 2005, etc.) attributes William’s largely bloodless victory not so much to his considerable talents as a soldier-king, but rather to his sublime understanding and mastery of politics. Accustomed to the Dutch exercise of tolerance and a free press, William used pamphlets and newsletters to sway an increasingly literate public and prepare the ground for his “invitation” to Britain. He convinced the English that he would end the untrammeled power of James and his counselors, ensure a free and lawful Parliament and save the Church of England and the ancient constitution. With the help of talented general John Churchill (who betrayed the king), William maneuvered brilliantly to achieve his larger political goal of binding England to a war with France. He allowed James to escape the island, avoiding the threat of regicide. He also acceded to the Declaration of Rights, guaranteeing citizens’ rights to petition and keep arms, prohibiting excessive bail, fines and illegal punishments. These rights, Barone argues, along with William’s promise not to interfere with Parliament, are precisely what the American colonists had in mind 75 years later.
Brisk, thoughtful assessment of the full significance and implications of an episode in British history underappreciated on this side of the Atlantic.Pub Date: May 8, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-9792-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2007
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 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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.
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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