A lucid explanation of Islamic history in the context of both the ancient and modern worlds.
Deeply researched history of the divergence of Shia and Sunni Islam and its geopolitical implications.
The epicenter of the Shia and Sunni split lies in the middle of the always fiercely contested territory of Iraq, where the Battle of Karbala was fought in 680 B.C.E. On one side was an army led by Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, massacred by the forces of the second caliph, who would lead the newly established religion. Shia embrace the claim of Muhammad’s bloodline, Sunnis that of the caliphs, and both sides have solid reasons for their stances. Yet, global religious studies lecturer Matthiesen shows, “key doctrinal positions, such as the ideas that Sunnis accept the first four Caliphs and Shia only the Caliphate of Ali, developed over time, and some adopted a middle ground.” Furthermore, notes the author, Sunnis and Shia have lived side by side without conflict; when the two factions come to blows, it is often because enmity has been put into motion by outside powers and proxies. Russia, for example, supported the Assad regime in Syria as a “continuation of Cold War ties,” taking part in a genocide that was “the result of the activation of communal memory in the context of civil war, regional polarization, foreign intervention and the institutionalization of sectarian identity in the modern state.” Meanwhile, the Islamic State group has attempted to rally the Shia in the Persian Gulf States to rise up against the hated Sunni Saudi Arabia even though many in the region consider IS “a Sunni vanguard against the Assad regime, Iran, and Shiism as a whole.” The competition for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran may unfold in superficially religious terms, but Matthiesen demonstrates that it goes far beyond merely sectarian considerations—and the U.S. has not been shy about taking sides. The split may never entirely heal, but in Iraq, all sides have resisted intervention by American hands.
A lucid explanation of Islamic history in the context of both the ancient and modern worlds.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780190689469
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
