An important and necessarily uncomfortable work on a disturbing legacy.
A comprehensive history of an ugly, long-running chapter of American history.
As Barnes, a historian at Princeton, describes it in this essential but painful-to-read work, the grotesque practice of blackface minstrelsy in America extends from “Jim Crow’s toothy grin in fraternal halls and civic centers” to its globalization through publishing empires, to the U.S. government casting it as “an emblem of uplift and American culture to be preserved and proselytized” during the Great Depression and beyond. Her immensely readable work covers more than a hundred years of white America’s embrace of this sordid form of entertainment. Among the organizations and prominent figures are Edwin P. Christy, who in 1846, in Buffalo, N.Y., formed the Christy Minstrels—“the world’s first enduring minstrel company”—and the Jolly Corks, a group founded in 1868 that became the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks (BPOE), which transformed minstrel shows into a “fundraising juggernaut,” became “a sanctuary for white male supremacy,” and maintained an enormous political influence well into the 20th century. Popular entertainers from Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Mickey Rooney to Shirley Temple and Doris Day donned blackface. Schools and churches staged productions. The ignominious history is frighteningly long, including Japanese Americans’ forced participation in minstrel shows—when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered them into camps after Pearl Harbor—and the University of Vermont’s annual Kake Walk, in which, from 1893 to 1969, participants emulated the “Cakewalk”—“competitive dancing that enslaved men and women were forced to perform with fake joviality for white enslavers’ amusement.” Barnes also highlights heroic figures who fought to end the practice, from the NAACP to activist Betty Reid Soskin to musicians who created “the soundtrack to a revolution” by replacing minstrelsy and blackface “with authentic portrayals of Black life, Black beauty, and Black dignity,” with artists such as Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone leading the way.
An important and necessarily uncomfortable work on a disturbing legacy.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781631496349
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
