A fresh, well-informed addition to the literature devoted to early American history.
The role of mapmaking in the discovery and development of America.
In Europe, the Renaissance stoked the desire to find “worlds beyond the medieval horizon,” write Asbury and Isbouts, who show the critical role of cartography in the rise of America. Beginning with the expeditions of Columbus and continuing through the American Revolution, the authors provide a scholarly review of the history of the U.S. Although much of the information presented is not new, the renderings of various iterations of relevant maps and an analysis of their implications provide a more robust examination of this time period than many surveys. For example, as the authors note, when Columbus set out to find a western route to the Indies, “the problem was, of course, that the medieval understanding of geography was still very rudimentary. Since Antiquity, very few people had actually endeavored to try to depict the earth in all of its far-flung beauty and detail.” Columbus was forced to turn to the only geographical resources available, which failed to indicate that another continent blocked his path. Despite the atrocities associated with his exploration, the authors assert that his achievements inspired subsequent voyages and led to developments in image reproduction, including copper engraving and three-dimensional globes, which would radically change the way Europe saw itself and its role in the world. Following colonization, the authors demonstrate the ways in which maps and diagrams proved instrumental in the division of land parcels, treaties with Indigenous peoples, and the complex interactions involved in the French and Indian War and other conflicts. The authors also note that, as exploration continued, maps and globes became conversational pieces and status symbols, frequently displayed as artwork in homes and included as objects in paintings of the day. Adding depth to the analysis are a host of full-color images of historical maps, related diagrams, paintings, and photographs.
A fresh, well-informed addition to the literature devoted to early American history.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948062-76-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Apollo Publishers
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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 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
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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