by Stephen Budiansky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 20, 2011
Highly readable and especially useful as an overview of the early days of the U.S. Navy.
This early entry in the likely flood of books on the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 focuses on the naval action.
Journalist and military historian Budiansky (The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox, 2008) notes that 1812 has as good a claim as any American war to the title “the forgotten war”—understandably, considering that it was at best a draw for the United States. In Jefferson’s administration, the government wasn’t sure it needed a navy at all; only the Barbary pirates seemed to justify keeping a few warships. Attitudes changed when Britain, embroiled in its war against Napoleon, began raiding American ships for sailors. A British ban on American merchants trading with France also gave the U.S. a casus belli. Britain’s refusal to concede these points resulted in open conflict, during which America was effectively forced to invent a navy from bare bones. Surprisingly, American sailors gave a good account of themselves in the early going. But William Jones, recruited to serve as Secretary of the Navy, recognized that single-ship duels were a losing strategy and issued orders to concentrate on commerce raiding. Consequently, for the majority of the war, American privateers and commerce raiders preyed on British ships, from the Pacific whaling grounds to the Irish Sea. Budiansky gives a solid account of all major naval actions and a fine picture of the personalities of the key figures—especially the proud American captains William Bainbridge, Stephen Decatur and Isaac Hull, and their British counterparts. The author also looks at the fate of American prisoners of war and at the larger political issues behind the war. The Treaty of Ghent brought the war to an end early in 1815, with Britain formally conceding none of the American demands. In practice, the impressments of American sailors ceased, ending the major bone of contention. Budiansky sees the result as an early example of asymmetric war, in which a weaker power prolongs the conflict by choosing to fight only on favorable terms until its opponent grows tired of the exercise.
Highly readable and especially useful as an overview of the early days of the U.S. Navy.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-27069-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
Share your opinion of this book
More by Stephen Budiansky
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
17
Our Verdict
GET IT
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2017
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
National Book Award Finalist
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 Yorker staff 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
Share your opinion of this book
More by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
BOOK REVIEW
by David Grann
More About This Book
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Share your opinion of this book
More by Elie Wiesel
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.