A powerful work of sociological investigation and literary journalism.
A continent-ranging account of the terrors of a system of warehousing unwanted children.
According to a sobering study in Australia in the early 2000s, writes Kenneally, “the residents of orphanages were overwhelmingly not orphans.” As the author shows, this is a global problem. Though the orphanage system has largely given way to foster care and adoption, to say nothing of imprisonment, for generations, countless children were condemned to orphanages because their parents did not want them or could not care for them. Forgotten there, the children were subject to sexual and physical abuse at the hands of priests, nuns, wardens, and staff members; in numerous instances, they wound up dead at those same hands or, in some instances, murdered by fellow wards. Kenneally examines orphanages in Australia, the U.S., and Canada and delivers a distressing amount of somber news. For example, many “survivors,” as they often call themselves, wind up dying young from drug or alcohol abuse or suicide. By the author’s account, those who died within the system were overwhelmingly Indigenous or Aboriginal children far out of proportion to their numbers. “Many children who died were not named by the schools, nor was their date of death noted, and for almost half of the children, the cause of death was not recorded,” she writes. In one school, Kenneally recounts, 6 of 8 chaplains in charge had been accused of sexual abuse, while one now-elderly nun, with only a touch of remorse, admitted, “We had permission to kick the children.” When these stories first came to light in the 1990s, notes the author, they were too often dismissed as fabrications, but now, says one reporter, “Finally in 2022…people are willing to hear these stories and believe them.” Kenneally makes a strong case for prosecuting still-living monsters and providing reparations for their still-living victims.
A powerful work of sociological investigation and literary journalism.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781541758513
Page Count: 384
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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