A stimulating look at the American Revolution by a diligent historian and talented writer.
A fresh view of Britain’s attempt to quash an independence movement that didn’t have to occur.
The British defeat in America was as unnecessary as the war. The colonists never wanted to separate from England; they were willing to pay taxes and support the king. Leading from abroad demanded unrealistic goals and provided insufficient resources. Different strategy, improved leadership at home, and better field commanders would have made a world of difference. The king’s fixation on gaining control of the corridor along the Hudson to Canada was an impossible task, illustrated by Gen. John Burgoyne’s loss at Saratoga. Throughout the war, the English reliance on loyalist support was delusional; any who might have joined them were put off by English and Hessian atrocities. Daughan’s (The Shining Sea: David Porter and the Epic Voyage of the U.S.S. Essex During the War of 1812, 2013, etc.) broad background in the naval history of the period and his inclusion of the English view comprises a portrait of a different revolution than the one taught in textbooks. The English leaders spent more time squabbling with each other than fighting battles. Too often, advantages were not pressed and defeats were snatched from the jaws of victory. Particularly absurd was the failure, without explanation, of Henry Clinton to press the attack on West Point after Benedict Arnold was exposed. It was scheduled within days, but he held back. George Washington had a similar amount of trouble, with subordinates undermining his authority and even, in the case of Gen. Charles Lee, ignoring orders. Throughout the war, Washington’s troops were undersupplied, hungry, and unpaid, and he didn’t even have a standing army until after the evacuation of New York. What Washington had was the ability to reinforce his army, something the British could not do. These stories are fascinating—egos run rampant, and myriad opportunities go by the wayside—and Daughan brings all his subjects to vivid life.
A stimulating look at the American Revolution by a diligent historian and talented writer.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-24572-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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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