An often engrossing, if disjointed, anthology by a military expert.
U.S. Army veteran and commentator Lang offers a collection of assorted writings on military affairs.
The author’s distinguished military career comprises decades of service as a colonel in the Army, as a military attaché in the Middle East, and as a co-founder of West Point’s Arab language and Arabic studies program.His career in the private sector is equally impressive, including international business consulting, regular appearances on TV and in print media, and the publication of several books, including, most recently, The Human Factor: The Phenomenon of Espionage (2022). This latest book effectively blends his expertise in foreign affairs with his passion for military fiction, offering readers an eclectic mélange of memoir, commentary, and short fiction. The book begins with several chapters related to Lang’s experiences with “human intelligence”: intelligence gathering that prioritizes interpersonal relationships and contacts. Communications monitoring and satellite imagery attract more attention in pop-culture representations of espionage, but Lang’s case studies from the war in Vietnam and 21st-century wars in the Middle East make a convincing case for the primacy of human contacts. Particularly compelling is his argument that America’s “cultural blindness” has had disastrous consequences in our foreign policy, as in the case of the George W. Bush administration’s “dream version of Iraq,” which asserted that “inside every Iraqi there was an American trying to get out.” This, he notes, led to false confidence that infected the administration’s prewar planning, which was built around the idea that Americans would be greeted as liberators by a citizenry ready to shed their “old ways.”
The book’s second part, divided into five sections, is its strongest; it similarly draws on Lang’s expertise of the Middle East, providing readers with an erudite, yet accessible, discussion of the nuances of key concepts from Twelver Shiism and Wahhabism to Jihad and Ibadhism. The author’s inclusion of several short stories, however, is less effective. Many are historical military fiction, set in time periods that range from the Crusades to 19th-century France. One story offers an alternate history of the U.S. Civil War in which the Confederacy survived and debated changes to their constitution. The book’s absurd concluding story, “Carolina in the Mornin,’ ” centers on a future 2027 war between the United States and an alien race known as “Furries” that look “like furry Great Danes with big teeth and claws.” Bizarrely, they are led by a figure who wishes to be called “Eleanor Roosevelt.” The story includes an appearance by “Doctor Spock,” who references Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. The oddness of these stories stands in stark contrast to the more serious commentary that Lang provides on intelligence operations, Middle Eastern strategy, and America’s relationship with Russia. This eclectic anthology of published and unpublished writing lacks cohesiveness, with chapters arranged in ways that lack thematic or chronological sense; the short stories, especially, would work better as a separate volume. That said, the author is skilled at distilling complex concepts into straightforward, absorbing narratives, and the inclusion of images of historical figures and occasional maps enhances the work.
An often engrossing, if disjointed, anthology by a military expert.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2022
ISBN: 9781663248442
Page Count: 316
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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