A knowledgeable, disturbing presentation of the prominent role of racism in the years of the nation’s birth.
A sobering argument that American independence was gained principally after Colonial leaders purposefully “weaponized” prejudices against African Americans and Native peoples.
As Parkinson notes at the beginning, this book is a distillation and revision of his much longer book, The Common Cause (2016), and it features a “new introduction and conclusion and new material exploring all the myriad problems patriot leaders faced when they began the nearly impossible task of constructing a durable union in the 1770s.” Using rarely studied Colonial newspaper evidence, the author reveals how fear as much as idealism drove American colonists to independence. It was because of their shared conviction that the British were preparing to use non-White people against them that, Parkinson argues in John Adams’ words, “thirteen clocks were made to strike together.” The author convincingly demonstrates how Colonial anxieties emerged immediately after the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord and, only 15 months later, made their way into the Declaration of Independence, which described “merciless Indian savages,” “foreign Mercenaries,” and “domestic insurrectionists.” Colonial leaders didn’t create these fears; instead, they stoked long-existing ones to unite the Colonies in their unprecedented drive for political freedom. Then they structured post-Revolution constitutions to prevent the incorporation of Blacks and Natives into the population as citizens. Parkinson pulls no punches. “When the war was won,” he writes, “the so-called ‘founding fathers’ wanted the ‘candid world’ to believe that only the first paragraphs of the Declaration—with the lofty sentiments of self-evident truths and inalienable rights—animated the colonists’ fight for liberty….What they wanted us to forget—and we largely have—was that the drive to have thirteen colonial clocks strike as one was also a campaign stamped by the vicious, the confining, and the destructive.” While omitting other factors, the author makes a strong case for the soiled origins of the U.S.
A knowledgeable, disturbing presentation of the prominent role of racism in the years of the nation’s birth.Pub Date: May 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4696-6257-2
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Univ. of North Carolina
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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
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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