A work that stands out from the immense and ever-growing shelf of World War II literature.
A rich portrait of the fate of art—and artists—in the shadow of Hitler.
Loebl opens her book with a jolt: Over the course of their rule, the Nazis looted some 650,000 pieces of art. In her ranging and mostly engrossing investigation, she focuses on the principal figures, events, and works that were at play in this knotted and tragic story of art in the Third Reich. The author of 14 books, including America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy, Loebl herself escaped Nazi Germany with her art-collecting family. As she rightly conveys, art was something that senior Nazis both hungered for and despised, depending on the subject, genre, and artist’s nationality. In swift and unencumbered prose, the author tells of how they attempted—and often succeeded—in cleansing it, first in Germany and then in the territories they occupied, looting museums and private collections at will. One target was the German Expressionists whose work Hitler regarded as “degenerate.” In short profiles of the artists and their patrons or dealers, Loebl gives a thoughtful account of this crucial interwar movement and the attacks it endured as the Nazis rose to power. The author, who spent much of the war in hiding in Belgium, weaves in her personal story to great effect, including descriptions of her own forbears’ collections of Bauhaus furniture and important prints and paintings. Her writing sags at times when she attempts to demonstrate the vastness of Nazi plunder by favoring breadth over depth in stories of dozens of dealers and collectors. This choice makes some of the characters seem unidimensional. This blemish aside, she succeeds in presenting the immensity of artistic loss caused by the Germans, both the spoliated works and sometimes the artists themselves, some of whom perished in concentration camps. Powerfully, she gives readers a blunt reminder of how much art with dubious provenance remains in the galleries of our great museums.
A work that stands out from the immense and ever-growing shelf of World War II literature.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781538194225
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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