With careful research, Taylor unravels how the discovery of the past pointed the way toward a new future.
A remarkable look at how sweeping social changes can come from strange and small beginnings.
Anyone who thinks that the culture wars of contemporary times are being fought with unprecedented ferocity should take a look at this book, “a history of the geologists, paleontologists, and biologists who…discovered dinosaurs, expanded our knowledge of the earliest ages of Earth, and transformed our understanding of humankind’s descent.” Taylor, a well-regarded historian and author of The Interest, focuses on Britain in the 19th century and how the absolutes of fundamentalist religion were upended by discoveries of dinosaur bones and other fossilized remains. Until that time, the authority of the church was largely unchallenged. Consequently, the early-18th-century discovery of ancient bones of unknown creatures raised serious questions. At this time, Britain was undergoing a development boom, and the construction of new mines and railways soon revealed more bones. As the evidence of prehistoric animals continued to mount, the religious authorities found themselves on the defensive. There were many efforts to reconcile the emerging sciences with biblical history, but clearly there was no going back, despite fierce debate at every level. The speed of all this is striking: Essentially, within two generations, the basis of society shifted from religious certainty to scientific inquiry. "Few if any transformations in intellectual history have been more profound,” Taylor concludes. It’s telling that when Darwin, who had once been pilloried as a crank and a fraud, died in 1882, he was buried with honors in Westminster Abbey. Taylor ably conveys the ferment of the time, and he does so with respect to all concerned. This is an intriguing and accessible book, featuring many useful insights into how one age ended and another began.
With careful research, Taylor unravels how the discovery of the past pointed the way toward a new future.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781324093923
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
