Thompson vividly captures the wondrousness of this region of the world as well as the sense of adventure tied up in that...
An inspired history of the elusive far-flung Pacific region and peoples of the “Polynesian Triangle.”
Defined by the three points of Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island—and encompassing all the islands within it—the Polynesian Triangle was initially colonized thousands of years ago by a group of voyagers carrying with them their shared language, tools, myths, and plants and animals. Where did they come from: South America or Melanesia and Taiwan? Since the Pacific islands were first “discovered” by European explorers in the 16th century, the Western myths surrounding the “problem of Polynesian origins” abounded, and Harvard Review editor Thompson (Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story, 2008), a dual citizen of the United States and Australia, follows the thread in a beautifully woven narrative. The author is inspired by her husband, Seven, of Maori origin, who is essentially at home among any of the islands within this vast area of the Pacific Ocean, much as the original settlers would have been. From the first eyewitnesses to make contact with the islanders—Spaniard Álvaro de Mendaña on the Marquesas (1595), Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Island (1722), and James Cook on Hawaii (1778)—there was much wonderment about how these early seafarers could have traversed 600 miles between islands amid a vast expanse of ocean in canoes lacking sophisticated navigation instruments. As Thompson smoothly traces the history of the Polynesians and their language and culture through discoveries in anthropology and archaeology, especially radiocarbon dating, she emphasizes the importance of the migrations of the Lapita people from Asia. Ultimately, the author makes clear that the original settlers were not just blown about by currents and winds; they keenly navigated using star paths, ocean swells, and other land-finding techniques like bird-watching.
Thompson vividly captures the wondrousness of this region of the world as well as the sense of adventure tied up in that history.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-206087-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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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