A strong step in rehabilitating Humphrey’s image as a practical politician and civil rights activist.
A vigorous history of Hubert Humphrey’s many contributions to liberal politics, especially with respect to civil rights.
As Columbia journalism professor Freedman notes, Humphrey’s star has long been descending, and few remember him today. Humphrey himself remarked that the cause was simple: “I think the misjudgment of Vietnam.” Despite misgivings, Humphrey supported Lyndon Johnson’s conduct of the war, and he threw his lot in with Johnson’s efforts to secure civil rights—and especially voting rights—for Black Americans and other minority members. In this welcome rehabilitation, the author clearly shows how Humphrey had long been a strong advocate of civil rights, and as a graduate student in Louisiana, the Minnesotan had ample opportunity to study the corrosive effects of racism firsthand. As mayor of Minneapolis, he pushed through reforms to end anti-Black and anti-Jewish covenants and other mechanisms of discrimination. At the 1948 Democratic convention, he argued for a civil rights platform in the face of a party dominated by Southern Democrats. Moreover, though he fought that faction, Humphrey observed that no part of the country was immune to racism, and unlike many others, “he recognized the Northern brand of Jim Crow.” Humphrey delivered a smashing victory to Harry Truman that, by securing more than 75% of the Black vote, meant that the Democrats could win nationally without the Southern electorate. The Dixiecrats repaid the favor by stalling bills that Humphrey, a freshman in the Senate, had introduced to outlaw lynching and create a Civil Rights Commission. He made good on his own views by hiring the first Black American to serve on a senatorial staff. Still, even after decades in politics, when Humphrey returned to the Senate following his time as vice president, his full employment bill “had been rattling around Congress for three years already and was still stuck in committee,” precisely because Humphrey was so weakened politically.
A strong step in rehabilitating Humphrey’s image as a practical politician and civil rights activist.Pub Date: July 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780197535196
Page Count: 504
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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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