An engaging, concise primer of Africa’s great civilizations throughout history.
A debut author challenges Eurocentric notions of African history in this nonfiction book.
Seeking to dispel historical stereotypes, this primer takes readers to some of the most esteemed African civilizations, spanning from the West African Songhai Empire, whose city of Timbuktu was a center of the world gold market and Islamic scholarship, to central Africa’s Great Zimbabwe, a centuries-old trading center whose residents dined on Chinese porcelain hundreds of years prior to European colonization. Colonial-era history is well covered, as Bailey is careful to highlight the ways in which colonial thinkers deliberately created a false (but psychologically powerful) dichotomy between “primitive” Africa and “civilized” Europe to justify their misdeeds (“Nativessupposedly were in need of the balm of European-administered progress”). While the book largely focuses on Africa itself, it often touches upon a wider diasporic history that includes figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and tracks how colonial stereotypes of Africa spawned some of the most violent ideologies in recent history. The author’s intended audience ranges from kids to grandparents, and the text is written in an absorbing, accessible writing style. Encouraging reader engagement, there are dozens of maps, photos, and other visual images (one minor critique: Some of these images are rather low-resolution and appear blurry). At just over 50 total pages of narrative text, this is a concise book designed not to offer a comprehensive history but to inspire readers to continue their own exploration of the subject. The book’s brevity is not an indication of simplicity; Bailey provides more than 150 research endnotes that demonstrate a firm grasp on the relevant scholarship. The book is particularly strong delivering a top-down history of Africa, offering readers wide-angled views of powerful civilizations and important rulers like Mansa Musa. But those looking for cultural history—from Africa’s rich musical traditions to its distinctive spiritual cosmologies and folklore—will be left wanting.
An engaging, concise primer of Africa’s great civilizations throughout history.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9798890271839
Page Count: 82
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2025
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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