An agreeable historical travelogue.
Retracing the path George Washington took during five grueling trips across the nation during the first years of his presidency.
Taking his cue from John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, Philbrick chronicles his journey with his wife and dog. Unlike Steinbeck, he doesn’t claim that they were roughing it. Offering an instructive history lesson, the author reminds readers that the Constitution did not pass by a landslide. Many Americans, perhaps a majority, had supported the Revolution, but there was no mass movement in favor of a strong central government. The Constitution was the work of America’s educated elite, and even their support was far from unanimous. One of the original supporters, Washington, as portrayed by Philbrick, is an impressive figure who knew that he was a national icon, but this did not go to his head. Creating government institutions from scratch was difficult, but Washington had plenty of help. Convincing several million ex-colonists that they belonged to a single, united nation was his job alone because no one commanded his level of respect: “Only Washington could have formed an enduring national government in a country created by a revolution.” Touring every state to show himself and inspire a sense of nationalism was a sensible tactic, so that’s what he did. One issue that Philbrick doesn’t entirely address is that little of great interest occurred during Washington’s trips. The roads were terrible, the local inns dirty, and the receptions ecstatic. Crowds gathered, officials made speeches, and Washington mingled with admirers of all ages, many of whom recorded the experience in letters and diaries. Occasionally, he saw former colleagues or a familiar battlefield or dealt with political events back home. Though some histories of the era treat slavery as an unfortunate footnote, Philbrick does not shy away from pointing out its evils. When he cuts back to the present, roads and accommodations improve, and he encounters monuments, museums, and local historians who describe details of Washington’s visit and, more often than not, disprove a popular myth.
An agreeable historical travelogue.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-56217-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.
A deeply informed critique of the malicious initiatives currently using gender as a political tool to arouse fear and strengthen political and religious institutions.
In their latest book, following The Force of Nonviolence, Butler, the noted philosopher and gender studies scholar, documents and debunks the anti-gender ideology of the right, the core principle of which is that male and female are natural categories whose recognition is essential for the survival of the family, nations, and patriarchal order. Its proponents reject “sex” as a malleable category infused with prior political and cultural understandings. By turning gender into a “phantasmatic scene,” they enable those in positions of authority to deflect attention from such world-destroying forces as war, predatory capitalism, and climate change. Butler explores the ideology’s presence in the U.S., the U.K., Uganda, and Hungary, countries where legislation has limited the rights of trans and homosexual people and denied them their sexual identity. The author also delves into the ideology’s roots among Evangelicals and the Catholic Church and such political leaders as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. Butler is particularly bothered by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who treat trans women as “male predators in disguise.” For the author, “the gap between the perceived or lived body and prevailing social norms can never be fully closed.” They imagine “a world where the many relations to being socially embodied that exist become more livable” and calls for alliances across differences and “a radical democracy informed by socialist values.” Butler compensates for the thinness of some of their recommendations with an astute dissection of the ideology’s core ideas and impressive grasp of its intellectual pretensions. This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy.
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780374608224
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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