A good choice for serious fans of Pacific Northwest and marine history but information overload for mere lovers of all the...
The history of Orcinus orca, from its days as both a cultural icon of the Pacific Northwest and a dangerous pest to marine fishermen and whalers to stardom as a performer at marine theme parks.
Environmentalist Colby (History/Univ. of Victoria; The Business of Empire: United Fruit, Race, and U.S. Expansion in Central America, 2011, etc.) reports on one species and concentrates on one brief period of time, in contrast to Nick Pyenson’s Spying on Whales, which looks with a scientist’s eye at whales of all kinds in the distant past, present, and possible future. Colby’s story is also focused on the human relationships with orcas. His history is filled with the names of the men who attempted to capture killer whales, those who met with increasing success, the entrepreneurs who capitalized on whales, and the names of the whales that were caught. Readers will meet Namu, Kandu, Skanda, Taku, Haida, Chimo, and, perhaps the most famous one of all, Shamu (a name given to many after the original). For decades, catching and selling whales was big business, and as captive display animals at places like Sea World, killer whales became public favorites for their spectacular performances and their strikingly handsome black-and-white coloration. Captivity also meant that scientists could study orcas in ways not previously possible. By the 1970s, the environmental movement had become a subject of mainstream politics, and activists took up the issue of whale conservation. The author delves into the conflicts over regulation as protestors tangled with businesses, scientists with fisherman, and fishermen with government officials. Anecdotes abound. The cast of characters is enormous, and readers may find themselves struggling to keep the names straight.
A good choice for serious fans of Pacific Northwest and marine history but information overload for mere lovers of all the Shamus and their ilk.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-067309-3
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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
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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