A well-researched, timely exploration of the legacy and relevance of colonialism to contemporary society.
Scholars of Congolese and Belgian history survey the legacy of colonialism in this nonfiction anthology.
“At first sight,” the editors write in their introduction to this collection of 30 scholarly essays, “European colonialism is definitively a thing of the past.” And while most Europeans hold negative views of this past, a vocal minority, from conservative nationalists to outright white supremacists, continue to emphasize what they call the “positive aspects” of colonialism that spread the values of “Western civilization.” Indeed, as highlighted throughout the book, it was not until the 1990s that most Belgian historians abandoned an “apologetic approach” to their nation’s colonial efforts in the Congo. This anthology is published in partnership with Belgium’s AfricaMuseum, whose archival materials have been brought to life through the editorial efforts of Goddeeris (a professor of colonial history at Belgium’s oldest university, KU Leuven), Lauro (a researcher at the Free University of Brussels), and Vanthemsche (a professor of contemporary history at FUB). The anthology explores the intersection of Congolese and Belgian history through probing questions such as, “Was There a Genocide in the Congo Free State?” and “Did the Belgian Colonizer Create, Destroy or Steal Congolese Art?” Largely written by a panel of more than two dozen historians (who marshal an impressive body of research in their footnote citations), the work focuses on leveraging the scholarly community’s expanding understanding of the past to foster “meaningful solidarity between two communities who share a seventy-five-year history and who are prepared to look this past in the eye together.” While a familiarity with relevant jargon related to colonial theory may help readers with some of the more academically oriented passages, the book is generally accessible, providing readers with useful ancillary materials that include a timeline of Congolese history, a photographic essay, and ample maps.
A well-researched, timely exploration of the legacy and relevance of colonialism to contemporary society.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9782503598482
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Brepols Pub
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
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
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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