Brennecka’s enthusiasm for meteorites will appeal to experts and novices alike.
An exploration of the role meteorites played in the formation and cultural evolution of Earth.
Had Earth’s head-on collision with the meteorite named Theia not occurred exactly when it did, our planet would have evolved much differently. Brennecka, a cosmochemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, explains that this event, and later impacts, “may have delivered the organic material from which life developed, as well as the water on Earth that sustains it.” In this highly entertaining book, filled with informative and humorous charts, diagrams, and images, the author explores this moon-forming impact as well as other historical cosmic events involving space rocks—e.g., the 1990 discovery of an impact crater in Mexico that scientists believe caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Other topics include: Christopher Columbus’ using his knowledge of an upcoming lunar eclipse to avert an uprising when he had outstayed his welcome in Jamaica, Donald Trump’s staring directly at the sun without eye protection during the 2017 solar eclipse, and how “Mark Twain was born and died on occurrences of Comet Halley.” Brennecka also examines how meteorites have played a significant role in cultural and religious teachings throughout the world, including Aboriginal lore, Greek and Roman literature, biblical studies, and Islamic tradition, and he takes us to regions around the world where large numbers have been extracted: Australia, the Sahara Desert, and Antarctica, among others. The increased availability of samples has aided countless scientists in their research about Earth’s cosmic origins, but the meteorite trade has also led to the removal of objects that were treated as sacred by Indigenous peoples and made it difficult for research groups working on tight budgets. “Regardless of the discussion about the morality and business of meteorites,” writes the author, “meteorite monetization has been both a blessing and a curse for meteorite researchers.”
Brennecka’s enthusiasm for meteorites will appeal to experts and novices alike.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-307892-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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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