An insightful and informative look at a familiar piece of history.
Osnos, the founder of PublicAffairs Books and a former Washington Post correspondent, offers a personality-focused analysis of the relationship between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson.
This book dives into America’s military involvement in Southeast Asia, focusing specifically on how the personal qualities of McNamara and Johnson contributed to their mismanagement of the Vietnam War. Osnos opens with McNamara’s background and his role in the Kennedy administration, then looks at Johnson’s sudden ascension to the presidency in 1963. The book follows the two men’s decision-making processes over the following year, showing how they began to diverge—both personally and professionally—and then examining how the war’s progress affected their sense of self and historical legacies. He concludes that there was little chance that the United States could have extricated itself from the conflict and avoided the loss of tens of thousands of lives, due to the two men’s conceptions of the presidency, their relative strengths and weaknesses as political actors, and fraught relationship with each other. Although there’s no shortage of books on the Vietnam War, this one offers a distinct approach, which benefits from Osnos’ unique insights into one of the principals: For more than a decade, he served as McNamara’s book editor, including the secretary’s memoirs. Osnos recorded extensive editorial interviews with him, and this book draws heavily on their transcripts, delving deeply into McNamara’s thinking and highlighting areas in which he was more candid or introspective than he was in public statements. Without similar insider access to Johnson, Osnos still does a solid job of assessing the former president using existing research, particularly Robert A. Caro’s biographies. Along the way, the author strongly and clearly identifies the stakes and implications of his subjects’ choices: “Nothing in LBJ’s character, especially after the humiliation of the years as vice president, could possibly be more important to him than restoring his self-confidence as a politician and as a man with power and the capacity to use it.”
An insightful and informative look at a familiar piece of history.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781953943552
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Rivertowns Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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