Two centuries of German history are brought into focus through the lens of a strategically placed, highly interesting family. American journalist Friedrich's (Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet, 1992, etc.) 14th book takes up the aristocratic von Moltke clan. The family first came to international prominence with General Field Marshal Helmuth Count von Moltke, the great military strategist and architect of Prussian victories over the Austrians (1866) and the French (187071). Friedrich tarries perhaps too long over the tactical details of famous battles and not long enough on the mind of this remarkable man. And occasionally the more vivid personality of Otto von Bismarck runs away with the show. Bismarck gets all the good lines, as when he likens the way he manages the Prussian sovereign to handling a balky horse who ``takes fright at an unaccustomed object, will grow obstinate if driven, but will gradually get used to it.'' Von Moltke was by contrast a man of few words. Though other von Moltkes crop up here and there, the book's remaining third is mainly concerned with the field marshal's heroic descendant, Helmuth James von Moltke. A man of clear mind, independent conscience, and firm resolve, this von Moltke opposed Hitler and the Nazis and hoped to help steer Germany back on the track of decency. He was at the center of a resistance group that plotted the assassination of Hitler, though von Moltke himself was opposed to the killing. In 1944 the Gestapo arrested him, and after being found guilty of treason, he was executed in 1945. He is survived by his wife, Freya von Moltke, who was a principal source for Friedrich's account. Friedrich's emphasis on only two members of the family, together with the rather more vivid presence of Bismarck, gives the book a sense of unbalance. Though often engaging, it does not finally cohere as the story of a whole family. (maps and photos, not seen).
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-016866-8
Page Count: 448
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1995
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 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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