A sturdy, readable resource that regards the Blitzkrieg as no magical matter.
A lively study of the first part of World War II that moves along operational and tactical lines.
Concentrating on the beginning salvos of war in the West, British historian and novelist Holland (Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943, 2012, etc.) sticks close to the nuts-and-bolts angle of the various flare-ups, beginning with complacent American isolationism in mid-1939 and the rise of extremism in Germany and Italy in reaction to struggling economies. The author returns throughout this engaging narrative to several key players for an intimate look: Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Galeazzo Ciano, who caught the rise of Benito Mussolini, married his daughter, and stood at the heart of discussions with the new Axis partner, Germany, intent on regaining the Danzig Corridor; Capitaine André Baufre, the French staff officer chosen for work in diplomacy, who had grave doubts about the French army’s preparedness; and Edward Spears, member of the British Parliament and Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s personal representative, who would observe the horrific fall of France. (Holland provides a terrific “cast list” as well as comprehensive maps throughout.) The author follows the earnest work for diplomacy, the U-boat danger in the North Sea, the Battle of Britain and vacillation over Norway, the justification for the widening war in the Mediterranean, and—most importantly—just how all those ships, tanks, and artillery were fabricated and delivered. Germany faced huge obstacles, including a fuel shortage and the superior manpower numbers of France and Britain. Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, was the only way to remedy the chronic shortage of resources, but it was incredibly risky—and, as Holland notes, “nothing less than total victory would suffice.”
A sturdy, readable resource that regards the Blitzkrieg as no magical matter.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2397-8
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
HISTORY | MILITARY | 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 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
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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