An enlightening, timely study of the evolution of arguments about gun ownership.
An exploration of the foundations of America’s commitment to guns.
Filindra, a professor of political science at the University of Illinois, Chicago, argues that contemporary gun-rights advocacy, as expressed by the National Rifle Association and various militia groups, is most firmly rooted not in libertarian ideals but in two guiding, if sometimes masked, assumptions: that citizens’ armed readiness is a crucial element of political virtue and that white males are the only legitimate exemplars of patriotism. Drawing on a range of historical texts as well as original survey data, the author traces a lineage of arguments for individual gun ownership from the American Revolution to the present day. “White Americans developed an intersectional racialized and gendered theory of the Republic, which elevated White men alone as virtuous citizens,” writes the author. This is a deeply informed, persuasive book, offering a compelling overview of how Americans became militarized and how that militarization is increasing. Among the most striking sections are those in which Filindra systematically demolishes the NRA’s claims about the usefulness of an armed populace and the perils of leaving any group of citizens without the means to defend themselves with violence. As the author clearly demonstrates, rather than acting as a bulwark against tyranny, the veneration of guns has contributed to the rise of extremist organizations such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and, more generally, to “violent radicalization, support for political violence, and support for anti-democratic norms.” Though the author underscores the deep and long-standing appeal of so-called martial republicanism in the U.S., along with the significance of recent legal decisions that would seem to block attempts at gun control, she also points to a redemptive countertradition: An “inclusive civic republicanism” that emphasizes “multiculturalism and peaceful political activism” has its own profound legacy in the nation and might, if given enough encouragement, prove salvific.
An enlightening, timely study of the evolution of arguments about gun ownership.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780226828763
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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