History buffs will revel in Peter’s never-before-told story, which makes a vivid addition to Revolutionary War literature.
The life of a young Massachusetts slave who fought for his freedom in the Revolutionary War.
Malcolm (Law/George Mason Univ.; Guns and Violence: The English Experience, 2002, etc.) begins with Peter’s bill of sale, dated 1765. He was just 19 months old, and it was unheard of for a child so young to be sold without his mother. Intrigued by the implications of this document, the author investigated further and uncovered the tale of a heroic, conflicted boy whose dream was to live as a free man with his parents and twin sister. At age 12, as nearby Concord Road filled with the sights and sounds of battle, Peter joined the patriot army. In clear, engaging language, Malcolm reconstructs the surroundings, relationships and political atmosphere of the Revolution: the toil of New England farm life, the battles at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, Commander George Washington and traitor Benedict Arnold. Peter’s tale comes to life in rich detail and provides a new perspective on this era of change—that of a black soldier. His shifting identity—slave boy, adolescent soldier, free man—reflects the mercurial nature of the colonial Congress as it evolved toward eventual victory against the British. Peter, too, ultimately earned his freedom; his final enlistment was rewarded with emancipation. Other slaves would not be so lucky. In counterpoint to Peter’s story, the author introduces Titus, a slave from New Jersey who defected to the British, lured by the false promise of freedom once the war was over. The new American government did not abolish slavery either, despite any optimism it might have instilled in colonial slaves during the war. Malcolm seamlessly captures the intersection of personal, political and military strategy.
History buffs will revel in Peter’s never-before-told story, which makes a vivid addition to Revolutionary War literature.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-300-11930-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
