An absorbing account of the rise and fall of a notoriously provocative academic division.
A history of an influential, now-defunct Harvard University department.
Harvard’s Department of Social Relations was home to some of the 20th century’s most important (and controversial) social scientists, including sociologist David Riesman and psychologist Timothy Leary, and left behind a mixed record during its existence between 1946 and 1972. Its graduates, such as anthropologist Clifford Geertz, revolutionized social science, while its faculty engaged in some of the most ethically problematic research experiments of the 1950s and ’60s. The formation of the department marked a turning point in the history of American universities, as Harvard, then a bastion of stodgy traditionalism, became the nation’s first university to embrace a truly interdisciplinary department—one that integrated diverse fields, from sociology and anthropology to clinical and social psychology. As such, this book is just as much an intellectual history of mid-20th-century social scientists as it is an institutional history of a relic of Harvard’s past. Although the department struggled with “the realities of an academic world stubbornly structured around traditional disciplines,” the actions of its more radical faculty often attracted unwanted publicity and scandal. For example, Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass) gave student test subjects psychedelic drugs in their infamous “Good Friday Experiment.” Psychologist Henry Murray’s research on extreme stress subjected Harvard students to horrifying verbal abuse; the traumatized undergraduate victims included Ted Kaczynski, who would later target research universities as the Unabomber. Originally written as an undergraduate honors thesis during author Schmidt’s Harvard studies more than four decades ago, the book is largely based on firsthand interviews of the department’s faculty. Updated to include more contemporary scholarship, and with a firm command over the diverse interdisciplinary literature that emerged from the department, this is an extremely well-researched book with more than 70 pages of endnotes and bibliographic references. It gives readers an engaging glimpse into transformations within post–World War II higher education.
An absorbing account of the rise and fall of a notoriously provocative academic division.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5381-6828-8
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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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