A captivating look at how America’s 50 states survived on the way to becoming a nation.
A historical compendium proves that many countries had a shot at the land that became the United States, but circumstances instead resulted in a new nation.
For their latest volume, Kelly and Laycock (America Invades, 2015, etc.) turn their series concept on its head. Instead of detailing how a particular country invades other nations, it summarizes how various countries invaded the United States. And the work re-emphasizes how the U.S.’s many vanquishers pushed its only true inhabitants, the Native Americans, off their lands and onto fixed reservations. As Kelly writes in the introduction: “These invasions have, for good or ill, reshaped” America and “in many ways defined her.” The authors take the reader alphabetically through the 50 states and Washington, D.C., covering skirmishes, great and small, that took place within each. The exhaustive research shows how the governance—and the borders—of each state was exceptionally fluid, as conquerors came and went, often because of military action elsewhere, either in North America or around the globe. Drawing from hundreds of years and thousands of battles, the two succeed in being extremely thorough rather than all-encompassing. Yet they manage to keep their book an airy read. That’s because, as always, Kelly and Laycock are masters of the fascinating factoid, information that’s tangential to their overall thesis yet exceptionally worthwhile: “The training of African-American airmen at Tuskegee is also a noteworthy feature of Alabama’s war effort during World War II. In March of 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was a passenger in a plane flown by an African-American pilot over Alabama.” Because both authors are history buffs, Kelly acknowledges that this volume was almost inevitable: “America Invaded was in many ways inspired by my personal journal of discovery of American military history. In 2014, I drove through 36 states on my book tour for America Invades.” The work contains a treasure trove of maps, photos, and Web addresses that allows amateur historians to undertake their own research. All told, this is a worthwhile addition to the authors’ invasion series. The only question remaining is, after covering Britain, Italy, and America (twice), which nation will pique their curiosity next?
A captivating look at how America’s 50 states survived on the way to becoming a nation.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-90240-0
Page Count: 414
Publisher: History Invasions Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
