This absorbing history emphasizes climate change, delivering important lessons about the Roman Empire’s decline.
A British historian examines the fall of the Roman Empire.
This second installment of a nonfiction series on the decline of the Roman Empire explores the pivotal events that led to the Goths’ sacking of Rome in 410 C.E. The book begins with a gripping description of the Battle of Adrianople (378 C.E.), where ostensibly disciplined Roman legionaries lost to disorderly, “savage” Goths. Just 32 years later, Goth fighters would occupy the streets of Rome itself. The rapid decline of antiquity’s most powerful military empire has long captivated historians, who have pointed to a myriad of sometimes paradoxical explanations that range from moral decay to the rise of Christianity. One German historian, Holmes notes, listed more than 200 contributing factors to the empire’s collapse. Offering “new answers to the old questions,” this book concurs with many contemporary scholars in stressing the “failure of Roman political leadership” and other internal factors but adds a convincing, novel explanation of its own. Drawing on cutting-edge paleoclimatology, the author argues that a fourth-century “megadrought” in the Asian steppes sparked a mass migration of nomadic Huns to “find new pastures” in Europe. This migration initiated a “domino effect that pushed the Germans west” and into inevitable competition with Rome. A skilled storyteller whose books are accompanied by a popular podcast (The Fall of the Roman Empire), Holmes presents a riveting account that eschews jargon for an engaging retelling of the wars, intrigue, and personalities that contributed to Rome’s decline, with entire chapters devoted to single battles. This emphasis on accessibility is accompanied by more than two dozen images and maps as well as useful appendices that offer timelines of the reigns of Roman emperors and major events. Some scholars may look skeptically at a 346-page book that features only 88 endnotes, but Holmes generally has a solid command of the relevant history and provides a short essay that lists “essential reading” in lieu of “a general bibliography.”
This absorbing history emphasizes climate change, delivering important lessons about the Roman Empire’s decline. ("Find Out More About the Fall of the Roman Empire"; "The Roman Revolution"; acknowledgements; "Roman Emperors"; Chronology of the Later Roman Empire; further reading; notes; index; about the author)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781739786526
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Puttenham Press Ltd
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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: Jan. 1, 2026
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