An earnest, well-intentioned, and scattered vision for America.
A debut nonfiction work offers a hippie manifesto for the future of the United States.
A White Rainbow, a veteran of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and ’70s, was left disillusioned with the lack of recognizable change in societal consciousness. This led to a period of isolation. But experiences with the Rainbow Family—an egalitarian organization that holds periodic, noncommercial gatherings in nature—gave him a glimpse of social possibilities. The author’s mission in this book is to bring these values of healing, equality, nonviolence, and reconciliation to the society at large rather than just to a temporary, subcultural space. A White Rainbow’s message is presented prophetically. “The general resolution,” he asserts at one point, “is simply no more war, no hurting each other, and no withholding help from those in need.” Specific steps the author advocates include points about campaign finance reform (for example, the elimination of “biased private or corporate funding of election campaigns and congressional lobbies”) and the implementation of a “semi automated real time fact checking” technological system, which will help “identify potential ulterior motives and lies.” He also addresses aspects of the genocide of Native Americans, specifically the Dakota War of 1862 and the subsequent executions of 38 Dakota warriors. The author’s argument is made not with evidence or details but with imploring statements such as “Believe me. You will also see for yourself” and with the habit of boldfacing key phrases in every paragraph for emphasis. The volume is at its strongest when examining the Dakota War. Because this material is grounded in specific historical details and trauma—and a particular opportunity for healing—the author writes with more focus. A White Rainbow—who identifies himself as white and is apparently Christian—uses Native American language and concepts throughout, delves into the imagery of Jewish mysticism, and occasionally employs Rastafarian terminology. This all has the uncomfortable feel of cultural appropriation, although a lengthy note buried in the annotated research bibliography directly unpacks some of the issues surrounding that practice. “Native American,” A White Rainbow writes, “is not like a fashion” to be imitated. This is an important and relevant point but, like the fragmented and vague book itself, is not quite developed enough to be useful.
An earnest, well-intentioned, and scattered vision for America.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Along the Way
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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