Strongly written and thought-provoking—a must read for nonhistorians seeking a firm grasp of accurate American history.
An engaging warts-and-all history of the U.S. meant to better educate those who fight for it.
Examining the country’s history from its European “discovery” through Trump, Sjursen, a retired U.S. Army major and history instructor at West Point, expands on the course he taught there to help close “the gap between what scholars know and what students learn” about American history. Describing his approach to the original course, he writes, “exposure to the historical myths and flaws—in addition to the well-worn triumphs—of the country they might very well die for seemed appropriate. Anything less would have felt obscene.” Sjursen divides the book into 37 largely chronological chapters, many with provocative titles such as “Andrew Jackson’s White Male World and the Start of Modern Politics,” “Lies We Tell Ourselves About the Old West,” “JFK’s Cold War Chains,” and “The Obama Disappointment.” Throughout this fluid, readable history, the author provides illuminating comparisons between elements of American history and the modern world. “The Massachusetts Bay Colony,” he writes, “may indeed have more in common with modern Saudi Arabia—executing ‘witches’ and ‘sorcerers’—than it does with contemporary Boston.” These comparisons help readers better understand and contextualize the topics discussed. In each chapter, the author breaks down the positive and negative aspects of the subject, allowing readers to reconsider our shared history, with each chapter building on the previous one. Though mostly based on previous works, Sjursen’s book serves as an ideal overview of American history and a study guide to many of the events and figures that have been misrepresented in standard historical narratives. “The stories we tell about ourselves and our forebears,” writes the author early on, “inform the sort of country we think we are, the public policy we craft, and even what we imagine possible.” Sjursen tells those stories with aplomb.
Strongly written and thought-provoking—a must read for nonhistorians seeking a firm grasp of accurate American history.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-58642-254-7
Page Count: 672
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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