An insightful study of the birth of the American empire and the resulting “American century.”
A broad-ranging history of America’s early evolution as a world power, a more deliberate process than is often supposed.
In this second volume of the Dangerous Nation trilogy, Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes that late-19th-century America was a kind of conservative paradise. With a tiny military to support, taxes were low, and isolation “meant less need for strong central government, less military bureaucracy, and less need for speedy and efficient decision-making.” In this regime, foreign policy was an afterthought. That began to change with the war with Spain in 1898, which in some ways was a foregone conclusion, for even if Americans were not broadly interested in the outside world, they didn’t mind going to war—and Cuba, at least in the eyes of the Founding Fathers, was “a natural appendage of the growing country.” Seizing former Spanish possessions also helped curb other nations’ designs. Germany, for instance, clearly wanted the Philippines after occupying Chinese territory in 1898 and touching off a colonial land grab throughout East Asia. The U.S. clung to the Philippines not just to deny the archipelago to other powers, but also to civilize—in Protestant terms, of course—what William Howard Taft called “our little brown brothers.” Germany faded from the scene in Asia, but it soon turned to the project of a comprehensive “domination of Europe.” Again, Americans didn’t much care, and after World War I, the nation fell into “a profoundly anti-liberal mood” that supposed that democracy was doomed, a mood that Axis powers used to their advantage. Kagan cogently examines what he considers certain inevitabilities (e.g., the attack on Pearl Harbor) while delivering novel interpretations of events. For example, he suggests that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union earlier than intended in order to inspire the Japanese attack, which he supposed, incorrectly, would tie up the American military in the Pacific and keep it out of Europe.
An insightful study of the birth of the American empire and the resulting “American century.”Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780307262943
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
HISTORY | MILITARY | UNITED STATES | WORLD
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
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