An impressive blend of drama and history marvelously researched.
A historical account of a harrowing mountain battle during the Vietnam War.
Debut author Sly was drafted (he says “kidnapped”) into the Army only days after his graduation in 1968 from the University of South Dakota. He was assigned to the Awards and Decorations Department, which is responsible for writing accounts of notably brave conduct under consideration for commendation. He was sent to work as unit historian for Alpha Company, which had just weathered a macabre battle that decimated their ranks. When it comes to the issuance of medals, it's best to gather eyewitness accounts in the immediate aftermath of combat. Years later, now a civilian, Sly researched the battle further, even contacting some of the participants, which ultimately led to this breathtakingly fastidious record. In June 1969, after B-52s bombed a mountain called Nui Ba Den, which harbored the North Vietnamese army, Alpha Company was tasked with securing the base of the mountain in case enemy troops descended. However, a general ordered the company to aggressively ascend the mountain “dismounted”—meaning without either tanks or other military vehicles—despite objections from the company’s commanders. There were only a few ways up, and the visibility of the paths was greatly obstructed by massive boulders. Once specialized enemy snipers began picking off American soldiers, there was little they could do but retreat. The casualties were considerable, but so was the heroism of the soldiers involved. Sly carefully reconstructs the entire battle—including its tactical context and aftermath—and offers a moving account of his motivation: “Those who fought, particularly those who were killed in action, deserve to have their heroism, dedication to each other and dedication to their unit properly documented.” The writing is speckled with technical terminology and a farrago of initialisms; Sly helpfully provides a glossary at the beginning of the book that the reader will surely reference often. That grouse aside, the book is stirring and rigorous, a shining example of investigative journalism.
An impressive blend of drama and history marvelously researched.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5320-0304-2
Page Count: 182
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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
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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