A fascinating account of an overlooked scientific endeavor.
The story of the 18th-century expedition to determine the shape of Earth.
In 1735, a group of international scientists set sail for the equator. Their goal was to measure the length of one degree of latitude in order to come to a better understanding of the shape of the planet. At the time, two opposite beliefs prevailed: that the Earth is elongated at the poles or that it is flat at the poles. By comparing one degree of latitude measured at the equator to the one degree of latitude that had been previously measured in France, it would be possible to figure out if the Earth is prolate or oblate. “It was more than an abstract debate,” writes London-based journalist and explorer Crane. “Without knowing the precise shape of the Earth, there could be no accurate maps or charts.” As the author shows, this region has always been known for its treacherous terrain. The expedition faced steep mountains and dense rainforests as well as unpredictable weather and dangerous earthquakes. In a narrative that often reads like an adventure novel, Crane fluidly shares their story, including details and excerpts gleaned from their journals. Before reaching the survey destination, the mission experienced numerous setbacks, including disease, financial troubles, and deaths, as well as many that were self-inflicted. Not long after reaching the equator, they also learned that a similar geodesic expedition to the Arctic Circle was underway, but the determined team pushed on. While Crane’s writing is mostly captivating, the journey begins to feel tedious halfway through the book. Missteps abounded, and numerous sidetracked adventures led to further delays—in fact, the survivors of the mission did not return home for 10 years. Nonetheless, the trip was far from a loss. Along with information regarding the true shape of Earth, the crew’s mission ended up making numerous other important contributions to the scientific community.
A fascinating account of an overlooked scientific endeavor.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64313-795-7
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
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
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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