A depressing yet thought-provoking look at faith’s many great failures.
Eye-opening journey through the history of persecution among the Abrahamic religions.
In this sprawling examination of “the histories of tolerance and equality, from the time when the Roman Empire became Christian to the genocides of the twentieth century,” writer and documentarian O’Grady walks readers through numerous bloody centuries and guilty civilizations. Though the author, who admittedly approaches her subject from a Western liberal perspective, purports to write a history of tolerance, it is clear that tolerance has always been lacking in the joint history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In some ways, however, that serves O’Grady’s overarching point, which is that tolerance itself is no virtue. “No one wants to be tolerated,” she writes. “What we all want is not to be tolerated but to be treated as equals.” As the author chronicles, tolerance has turned to hate in many frightening ways. In each of the roughly chronological chapters (beginning with an account of Diocletian, who reigned from 284 to 305 and was “pagan Rome’s most savage prosecutor of Christians”), O’Grady showcases one example of persecution after another: the formation of suppressed groups in early Islam, the Crusades, the Christian persecution of heretics, the Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews, the Jewish Ghettos, the Protestant-Catholic wars of religion, Sunni and Shiite conflict, and on and on. Many of the chapters could be books of their own, but O’Grady does a good job of keeping the narrative tight. Though the author makes clear that no religious group has innocent hands, she does take pains to suggest that Muslims have had the most tolerant history when compared to Christians—and Jews have rarely had the opportunity to show tolerance at all. Ultimately, she writes, humanity should stop valuing tolerance because tolerance is still a reflection of superiority. Instead, we must strive for the virtues of “liberty, equality, and solidarity.”
A depressing yet thought-provoking look at faith’s many great failures. (16 pages of color photos, timeline)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64313-507-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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
SEEN & HEARD
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