Good ancient history off the beaten path.
Exploring vibrant cultures beyond the borders of classical Rome, Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East.
Historian Rees, a fellow at the University of Nottingham, writes that ancient Egyptians, Athenians, and Romans took for granted that the more distant you were, the further you were from civilization, but this was not entirely accurate. For example, ancient Egyptian armies spent thousands of years conquering or retreating from substantial Kush and Nubian kingdoms to the south. Contempt did not prevent traders and settlers from establishing thriving communities in barbarian lands. Massalia (Marseilles today) was settled by Greeks before 700 B.C.E., enjoyed good relations with the Gauls, and was even responsible for introducing wine to France. Readers aware of the havoc wreaked when Scythian horsemen descended from the steppes will learn of Olbia on the north Black Seacoast near Crimea, a thriving Greek city-state that not only absorbed Scythian culture but contributed to it. Not uncivilized at all, Aksum (today’s Ethiopia) was a substantial kingdom with its own brand of Christianity and a thriving trading center, Adulis, along the Red Sea. Wandering from his theme, Rees devotes many chapters to civilizations within other civilizations. Egypt depended heavily on Greek merchants. One consequence was Naucratis, the only port where Greeks were allowed to trade, a center of the “Egyptomania” that spread across the Hellenic world and is the subject of a long chapter. Another describes Taxila (in modern Pakistan), a kingdom at the farthest reach of Alexander the Great’s conquest. It managed to fend off Greek influence and become a center for expansion of the new Buddhist religion. Vietnam is arguably the furthest land of which the Romans had a vague knowledge. Rees calls it “the location for one of history’s biggest ‘what might have beens,’ where Rome and the powerful empire of Han China almost made direct contact with each other.”
Good ancient history off the beaten path.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781324036524
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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