A World War I authority offers a focused, organized, evenhanded work of research.
An accessible scholarly history of how the British Expeditionary Force found its legs during the first months of World War I.
Imperial War Museum oral historian Hart (The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War, 2013, etc.) has combed the archives for firsthand witnesses to the fraught first decisions and movements by the British and French armies to check the aggression across Europe of imperial Germany and Austro-Hungary. Traditionally enjoying maritime supremacy, Britain had to take stock as Germany began to build up its own fleet and massive continental army in accordance with the thinking of Gen. Albert von Schlieffen, as well as his successor, Gen. Helmuth von Moltke (the Younger), that the way to knock out France quickly was to move laterally through Belgium and Luxembourg. German aggression forced Britain to ally with France in the signing of the Anglo-French entente in 1906. This contributed to the secretive building up of a BEF under the direction of Gen. Sir Henry Wilson to “stand alongside the French.” The British had learned much about modern warfare since the Boer War of 1899-1902: The cavalry was on the wane and the machine gun on the rise, while important British generals continued to emerge, including Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig. Moreover, “close-order attacks” had ended, the system of trenches was developed, and the “movement” of men was achieved over open ground by heavy covering “fire” (hence Hart’s title). Indeed, the BEF (made up of many Irish and colonial recruits) proved itself a valiant foe against the larger German onslaught, from the battles of Mons in August through Ypres in late October, the race to the sea and the halted British retreat. Dispelling close-held myths, Hart presents extracts from diaries and letters by soldiers and officers for an in-the-moment account.
A World War I authority offers a focused, organized, evenhanded work of research.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2014
ISBN: 978-0199989270
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
HISTORY | MODERN | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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