An in-depth biography of 20th-century journalists Joseph and Stewart Alsop from historical writer Merry (A Country of Vast Designs, 2009, etc.).
Born into a wealthy Connecticut family in the early 1900s, the Alsop brothers followed a trajectory of American aristocracy from private school (Groton) to the Ivy League (Harvard for Joe, Yale for Stewart) to the top tier of Washington, D.C., society. With help from family connections (they were relatives of the Roosevelts) and their own tenacity, the brothers developed close relationships with many of the movers and shakers of 20th-century American history. The Alsops gained national attention for their syndicated column, “Matter of Fact,” and both continued their careers as journalists once the column ended. The list of government officials the brothers met with under settings both formal (on the record interviews) and somewhat less formal (dinner parties) reads like an answer sheet to a U.S. History 101 exam: John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, etc. Reading about the personal and professional lives of two well-connected journalists can at times seem like one long parade of champagne and expensive suits. At their most domesticated, the brothers interviewed sources, formed their opinions and made sure their column was complete before cocktails were served. The story of the Alsops fascinates when the brothers are working well beyond their comfortable homes in Washington (or a friend’s comfortable home in Paris or elsewhere). Joe’s time spent with the French Foreign Legion in Vietnam provides a haunting look at the struggle the U.S. would come to face following the French defeat. Stewart’s reporting on the Watts Riot in Los Angeles shows an almost comical view of the challenges facing America in the 1960s. Merry’s handling of the Alsops’ story, though at times sluggish with their blue-blooded excess, creates a multidimensional understanding of their lives, work and country. While portions of the book—such as coverage of Robert A. Taft’s primary results—may appeal only to select political junkies, the range of historical topics the Alsop brothers traversed offers something for anyone interested in the time period and the people who helped to shape it. Dawdles occasionally, but ultimately a satisfying tour of 20th-century American politics via the life of two D.C. insiders.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1467901840
Page Count: 688
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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