The future of the post, Gallagher argues in this readable, straightforward history, depends on citizens’ awareness of its...
A history of the United States postal system, which George Washington believed would “tranquilize” the country’s restless citizenry.
In 1792, the new nation’s Congress passed the Post Office Act, giving citizens access to mail service. As Gallagher (New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change, 2011, etc.) makes clear in this well-researched history, the law did not make such service “a basic right, like freedom of speech or religion,” but merely stipulated that the government would meet citizens’ demands. Benjamin Rush and James Madison believed postal service essential to “ensure democracy…educate the people, and change society.” With newspapers dominating mail, keeping citizens informed was a major function. From the beginning, though, postal service was undermined by bad roads and high costs for postage. Independent delivery services arose, undercutting the government’s rates and providing quicker, more reliable service by its own couriers. As the nation expanded westward, these competitors vied to meet the needs of Californians, who demanded “a reputable, regularly scheduled, twice-weekly stagecoach service that would carry both mail and travelers.” The short-lived Pony Express, and later Wells and Fargo, offered delivery through treacherous territory. Gallagher cites a Pony Express ad: “Wanted: Young, skinny fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” During the Civil War, the South scrambled to set up its own postal service, including issuing stamps. One enslaved man “successfully mailed himself to freedom inside a wooden crate” that was delivered to Philadelphia abolitionists. Gallagher traces the way a burgeoning postal service created a market for pens, stationery, and other letter-writing accouterments. The United States Postal Service was created in 1970, transforming a government agency into a government-owned corporation. The author regrets Congress’ “dysfunctional relationship” with the USPS and suggests ways to modernize “the world’s most productive postal system.”
The future of the post, Gallagher argues in this readable, straightforward history, depends on citizens’ awareness of its history. For a somewhat livelier, personality-driven account of the USPS, see Devin Leonard’s Neither Snow nor Rain (2016).Pub Date: June 28, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-500-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
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