A shrewd history of the fight to convey and repress objective truth.
Conflict between presidents and the press has erupted throughout America's history.
National Humanities Medal winner Holzer, a noted authority on Lincoln and the Civil War and director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, offers a lively, impressively well-grounded view of the relationships of 19 presidents with the journalists who covered them. As the author portrays them, presidents often felt threatened by the press but could not resist following the news. More or less, they sought to manipulate their own narratives; when they failed, they lashed out in anger. Caught “in the crosshairs of the press,” Washington did not stoop to respond while Jefferson, “buffeted by violent newspaper criticism throughout his presidency,” raged in “anti-press fury.” Manipulating the press during war obsessed some presidents: Lincoln became a harsh censor of news in order to control coverage of Civil War casualties. Similarly, when America entered war in 1917, Wilson “entirely shut himself off from the press corps, limiting its access to news of the war’s horrors, stifling criticism of American participation,” and “flooding the press and public with government propaganda.” Some naturally gregarious presidents treated journalists like friends. Teddy Roosevelt, for example, won reporters’ admiration “through the sheer force of his ebullient personality and his unrestrainable eagerness to share news, gossip, and sometimes even secrets.” Franklin Roosevelt invited reporters to garden parties. Holzer notes a profound change in reporters’ attitudes toward outing personal information—e.g., an “unwritten rule” prevented them from mentioning FDR’s disability. But after Nixon’s scandals, reporters became convinced “that only relentless press oversight could keep leaders honest and the republic safe.” Holzer astutely examines how several presidents made use of new technologies to disseminate their messages: FDR on radio, JFK on television, Obama on social media—and, of course, Trump on Twitter. Trump’s successor, Holzer asserts, will face a press emboldened to reassert its power.
A shrewd history of the fight to convey and repress objective truth.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4526-4
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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 Yorker staff 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
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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