A marvelously intricate work on Lincoln’s writings and thoughts, which continue to offer fodder for historians.
An astute exploration of Abraham Lincoln’s legal mind as he wrestled with the pro-slavery compromises of the Constitution—and transformed it.
First and foremost, Lincoln was a lawyer. Though he was personally disgusted by slavery—especially after seeing New Orleans’ slave markets, the largest in North America, when he was a young man—he grasped that the Constitution protected the institution in order for the states to work together as a union. Feldman, a Harvard law professor, lays out the central compromises of the Founding Fathers, enshrined in the Constitution in order to ensure Southern ratification: the three-fifths provision, protecting slave importation for 20 years, and the fugitive slave law. In his early forays into politics, Lincoln, a devotee of Henry Clay, followed the new Whig Party line that slavery would just fade away. However, as the author shows, the invention of the cotton gin changed all that, fueling the debate over whether new states should be slaveholding or free. Lincoln had to come to terms with this “compromise Constitution” as essentially a tool to facilitate national expansion. Yet the rebellion of the Southern states shattered this uneasy compromise, and as president, Lincoln resolved that the rebels could be coerced back into the Union. “By this logic,” writes Feldman, “Lincoln had to break the Constitution in order to fulfill his oath to uphold it.” Lincoln’s controversial—dictatorial, by some estimations—edicts included the suspension of habeas corpus, censorship of the press, and the freeing of the slaves. Feldman offers an elucidating look into Lincoln’s incremental thinking, neatly demonstrating how he articulated the “before” and “after” Constitution in the Gettysburg Address as a compromise versus a moral document, using an Old Testament/New Testament analogy that embodied equality for all promised in the Declaration of Independence. Feldman never bogs down in legalese, rendering a scholarly topic accessible for general readers.
A marvelously intricate work on Lincoln’s writings and thoughts, which continue to offer fodder for historians.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-11664-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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