An absorbing revisionist history of the ancient world.
A historian of ancient Greece debunks the greatness of Alexander.
Setting the reign of Alexander III of Macedon in the context of his father’s and successors’ achievements, Billows (History/Columbia Univ.; Marathon: How One Battle Changed Modern Civilization, 2010, etc.) argues persuasively that Alexander “is one of the most overrated figures in world history.” After the assassination of his father, Philip II, in 336, 20-year-old Alexander became ruler of Macedonia, inheriting a “strong, stable, prosperous” region, with growing cities and a thriving population, thanks to his father’s farsighted policies. Philip left “a loyal and obedient aristocracy and people” and “the best and largest army in the eastern Mediterranean region,” led by outstanding officers. Moreover, Philip had groomed his son to take command: Aristotle was among his tutors. Philip’s achievements, Billows asserts, far outweigh his son’s. When Philip became ruler in 360, at the age of 24, Macedonia was a tribal kingdom, “a country of large landowners” who lorded over “poor pastoralists.” Although the region was rich in natural resources, it was “a weak and unimportant backwater” beset by enemy forces. Philip embarked on a campaign of military recruitment, providing his new soldiers with up-to-date equipment, training them rigorously, and commanding a “picked force of elite infantry.” In addition, he established schools offering a free education to the sons of aristocrats, fostering camaraderie among the sons and loyalty from their parents. Through both military and civic efforts, Philip unified Macedonia and “created a strong sense of common identity and unity of purpose.” Heir to those political riches, Alexander set out to conquer: In a brief reign of 13 years, he conquered all of western Asia, subduing populations already subject to military force. A change in ruler, argues the author, made little difference to them. Violent when drunk, cruel when sober, Alexander “had a dominant personality and large ego.” Billows believes he has been unfairly heralded, less deserving of acclaim than his three successors, whose careers the author chronicles.
An absorbing revisionist history of the ancient world.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59020-740-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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