A clever history of how the Tudors ushered England into the medieval age, illustrating the broad influence they exerted both...
Lipscomb (Early Modern History/Univ. of East Anglia; 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII, 2009) combines her credentials as historian/TV presenter/author to give us a thorough history/guided tour of the Tudors.
The author divides the narrative geographically into seven districts, including greater London, tracing the stories of Henry VII, Henry VIII and his children. Rather than confusing readers, the geographic technique allows one to view the impact these monarchs had in each area. Sadly, no maps are supplied for each section. They would improve visualization and allow travelers to plan a visit. Still, once readers have finished this unusual book, they will discover their knowledge of the Tudor kings and queens has considerably expanded. Henry VII, the first Tudor and victor at Bosworth, reigned from 1485 to 1509. The building of Richmond Palace was Henry VII’s only break from his miserly ways as he fought to secure his dynasty. He died there, as did his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth I, almost 100 years later. Henry VIII’s lifestyle markedly contrasts with his father’s, as he built, or “acquired,” more than 60 houses and palaces, not least of which was Hampton Court. There are, logically, more places connected to Henry VIII and Elizabeth for the simple reason that their reigns were longer. Edward VI, Mary and the pitiful Jane Grey together only reigned just over a decade. Lipscomb avoids becoming an architectural or archaeological guide while pointing out ruins worth a look—e.g., Westminster Abbey, as well as less-renowned sites like Kenilworth Castle, which has a “baleful and crestfallen air.”
A clever history of how the Tudors ushered England into the medieval age, illustrating the broad influence they exerted both then and now.Pub Date: June 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-60598-460-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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 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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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