This should be today’s go-to book on its subject.
A warts-and-all history of “the oldest mass party in the world.”
In his latest, Kazin, a Georgetown historian and editor emeritus of Dissent, delivers a lively, timely survey whose central theme is the Democrats’ two-centuries-long effort to assist ordinary working people. That theme is neither novel nor, coming from a historian of the left, surprising. Yet despite the author’s Democratic favoritism—he occasionally writes in the first person—this is not an anti-Republican tract. Like Heather Cox Richardson’s analogous history of the Republican Party, To Make Men Free, Kazin applies tough scrutiny and due criticism to an institution that, as early as the 1840s, was unparalleled in its electoral and institutional innovations and acceptance of popular politics. While erring in calling Thomas Jefferson’s original Democratic-Republican Party a “proto-party” and ignoring earlier pioneering state-level achievements in enlarging the electorate, Kazin is on solid ground. To enliven his narrative and illustrate his arguments, he foregrounds often forgotten public figures like William Jennings Bryan (whose biography, A Godly Hero, Kazin wrote), Belle Moskowitz, Sidney Hillman, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. The author’s chapter on New York politics and Tammany Hall is brilliant. He doesn’t shy away from emphasizing the party’s control by Southern slaveholders, starting in the days of Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and extending into the 1860s, nor the outright racism of their heirs. He also digs into the deep misogyny in party ranks and the schisms that resulted from its extraordinary, unprecedented diversity—except for the long exclusion of African Americans. Without flinching, Kazin charts the party’s downward course from Franklin Roosevelt’s huge 1936 election victory—“the most complete victory in the history of partisan presidential elections”—to its abject losses starting in the 1960s. As the narrative thins toward the end, arriving at the present day, the author closes with unmistakable tones of lament for the party’s recent fortunes and missteps.
This should be today’s go-to book on its subject.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-20023-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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 Yorker staff 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
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.
The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.
Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden—is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668051351
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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