Seemingly settled history comes alive with renewed vigor in this incisive overview.
A historian dissects myths about the American Revolution with surprising results.
“The Die is cast.” With four simple words in his diary—written in 1773 after the dumping of 342 boxes of tea from three British ships into Boston Harbor—Founding Father John Adams voiced a growing sentiment that the 13 American colonies had had enough of British taxation and domination. However, few conflicts are more poorly understood that the American Revolution, argues Spannaus, the author of multiple books on the era, including Political Economy of the American Revolution (1977). Here, she expands on a series of blog posts, which she began in 2017 as “a challenge to my fellow American citizens” to look beyond persistent legends about the struggle. For instance, the Boston Tea Party—often presented as a tipping point—actually capped a decade of simmering anger over increasingly draconian restrictions on business and civil liberties. Nor was the revolutionary impulse shared by everyone, as Spannaus notes when she points out that the initial proposal to craft the Declaration of Independence passed by a mere 7-6 majority in the Second Continental Congress. Spannaus is at her most eloquent when refuting that the ideas of philosopher John Locke exerted the greatest influence on the Declaration; she confers that distinction on Swiss legal scholar Emer de Vattel. She notes that many Americans now interpret the Declaration to mean that citizens should “seek freedom from government, rather than the freedom to use government’s powers in order to pursue the common good.” This interpretation, she says, “violates the foundation of our liberty, which relies on our cooperation as a people for the general welfare and rights of all.” First and foremost, Spannaus’ book is a clarion call to “clear our heads” regarding the foundations of American ideals, especially during times in which the government ships citizens, against their will, to third countries, which parallels how King George III shipped colonists to England to quell what he saw as his subjects’ treasonous impulses. Spannaus makes such realities of history clear in her crisp narrative style.
Seemingly settled history comes alive with renewed vigor in this incisive overview.Pub Date: March 28, 2025
ISBN: 9798315279716
Page Count: 270
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
SEEN & HEARD
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