A sturdy, well-paced contribution to aviation history.
The tale of a forgotten aeronautical disaster.
Popular historian Gwynne, author of Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon, tells the story of the dirigible known as R101, a behemoth “larger by volume than the Titanic.” It resembled the Titanic in other ways, but the Exxon Valdez comes to mind as Gwynne examines the sobriety of its captain at a critically important moment. The author centers his narrative on the zeppelin’s champion, a member of the minor British nobility known as Lord Thomson of Cardington, the place name referring to “a gritty little industrial suburb” whose workers built the world’s largest airship in 1930. In those days, notes the author, airplanes were confined to short-distance flights, whereas helium- or hydrogen-filled giant balloons could travel at a comfortable clip across vast expanses of land or ocean. The trouble was, as the zeppelins that bombarded London during World War I showed, these balloons were extremely vulnerable to fire—if not in midair, then when they crashed. Gwynne nimbly recounts the odd politics of the construction of R101, which involved government support and a good bit of backroom dealing, as well as the details of balloon construction, including gasbag intestines that “might normally have been used as sausage casings”—and thus might not have inspired confidence. Needless to say, things did not end well for R101, and the author devotes his later pages to an autopsy of the disaster that befell it as well as the tragic tales of other airships, such as the U.S. Navy’s Akron, “the worst airship disaster in history,” and, most famously, the Hindenburg. Gwynne also spins a nicely intriguing side story involving Thomson and his infatuation with a Romanian princess who served as his muse, a brilliant woman who uttered amusing apothegms such as, “Giving a virgin to a man is like giving a Stradivarius to a monkey.”
A sturdy, well-paced contribution to aviation history.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781982168278
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 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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