A thorough, dynamic, accessible narrative that pulls together disparate strands into a unique, fresh history.
An extensive rendition of African European history from the third century to the 21st.
In this enterprising book, historian Otele provides critical insight into the stories of Africans in Europe, beginning during Roman times and continuing to the present. Though the author maintains a steady, meticulous chronology throughout this well-written, thoughtfully considered book, she wisely leaves room for asynchronous observations when necessary. The breadth and depth of Otele’s research are impressive, as are the vivid characters who populate these pages, including Alessandro de Medici, the first Medici duke of Florence and the son of a free African woman (see Catherine Fletcher’s The Black Prince of Florence for more information); the dual-heritage Signare women on the islands of Gorée and Saint Louis off the coast of Senegal; 19th-century Russian novelist Alexander Pushkin, who was ardently proud of his West African great-grandfather Gannibal; and significant figures in both the late-20th and early-21st-century French Afro-feminist movements, all the way through to the formation of the Mwasi movement, “a collective of women and non-binary women of African descent,” in 2014. Otele investigates the perceptions of Black populations in European countries and the degree to which those African Europeans have been truly accepted within those societies. The author analyzes the many manifestations of racism they have faced and how that prejudice and oppression can have generational effects, including the continued “criminalization of black bodies.” Otele is also highly attuned to the role of gender in her history, and she consistently draws attention to the ways in which African women have been treated in European countries. By detailing such a wide variety of experiences across a vast geographical and cultural landscape, the author causes us to rethink the way we consider the terms African and European. With impeccable scholarship, she puts them together in a new context, showing what it has meant to be African, European, or both.
A thorough, dynamic, accessible narrative that pulls together disparate strands into a unique, fresh history.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5416-1967-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 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 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
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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