This book should be read by every American who wants to know how courageous men and women can resist hatred.
The war at home.
This richly researched, impressively annotated, burningly bright book by Ross, a historian at the University of Southern California, rewrites the history of Black and Jewish life in the decades after the Second World War. Fighting for freedom abroad left many disappointed about freedom at home. The integration of the military, the Civil Rights Movement, and the post-Holocaust absorption of Jewish immigrants all challenged social and political norms. In response, many right-wing organizations launched, in Ross’ words, a “second civil war.” Rising antisemitism, Ku Klux Klan violence, and local legislation marred postwar America. Returning veterans were central to resisting hatred and violence. But the struggle was unending, and this book takes readers through familiar times and places with fresh research and a vivid narrative style. Ross calls it like it is. There was a “united fascist front” emerging, and we hear, anew, the names of men buried in history’s dumpster: Jesse Benjamin Stoner, Emory Burke, Homer Lesley Louis Jr., George Lincoln Rockwell. Such characters may be long dead, but their aspirations ring an eerie bell today. Ross writes, “Rockwell was convinced he would become the nation’s most prominent far-right leader through the sheer force of his personality and his clever use of mass media to attract a new generation of supporters.” Personality and media strode hand in hand then, much as now, and Ross alerts us to the deep and ugly history behind today’s trolls and truants. This is a story of “slogans, insults, and conspiracy theories.” It is a road map to the “prejudices and paranoid fantasies” that were, and remain, the dirt trails in the American landscape, where “truth was less important than belief.”
This book should be read by every American who wants to know how courageous men and women can resist hatred.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781635578003
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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