A handy introduction to the military genius whose philosophy of war was “draw your swords and throw away the scabbard!”
Brisk entry in Palgrave’s Great Generals series spotlights the battle prowess of Dixie’s warrior-saint.
With the possible exception of Patton, America has never produced a fighting general as outrageously eccentric or gloriously successful as Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1824–63). Orphaned young and only spottily educated, he graduated in the top third of his class at West Point, where fellow cadets remarked upon his rustic and taciturn manner, his queer health notions, bizarre dietary practices, iron discipline, punctilious observance of rules and powers of trance-like concentration. After serving with distinction as an artillery officer in the Mexican War, Jackson endured years in a variety of obscure army posts, then resigned his commission to teach at Virginia Military Institute. There he married, became a devout Presbyterian and subjected a generation of students to awkward, dull lectures and constant, repetitious drills. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he sided with Virginia and delivered a badly needed series of Southern victories, beginning at Bull Run—where his steadfastness under fire earned him his nickname—through his death by friendly fire at Chancellorsville in 1863. Davis (Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor, 2005, etc.) demonstrates how war transformed this silent, humble, shabbily dressed, deeply religious man into a killing machine. Notwithstanding his penchants for secrecy, constant quarrelling with fellow officers and driving himself to the point of useless exhaustion, Jackson became a symbol for the glorious cause second only to Lee. Davis ably distills his battle tactics. Beginning with a comprehensive knowledge of the terrain and well-placed artillery, the general sought to mystify, mislead and surprise, hurling his usually smaller forces against the weaker part of his foe, never letting up until they crushed the enemy. Speed, endurance and boldness characterized the rigorously trained troops who helped carry Jackson into legend.
A handy introduction to the military genius whose philosophy of war was “draw your swords and throw away the scabbard!”Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4039-7477-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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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