A sweeping, deeply researched account that will gratify specialists and nonspecialists alike.
Comprehensive history of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history.
In his third book, Oxford-trained historian and former State Department official Malkasian gives the most thorough account of the war in Afghanistan to date. Spanning more than 18 years and three American presidents—George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump—the conflict is now winding down, but in a way that many find disappointing. In the first three chapters, he lays the scene of Afghan culture and society. Malkasian argues that America’s war in Afghanistan is part of the broader upheaval sparked by the Soviet-Afghan War, begun in 1978 and fought between Soviet-backed Communists who took power in a coup and the resistance fighters to whom the U.S. supplied over $1 billion in funds and arms as part of Cold War containment. In the middle chapters, Malkasian gives a blow-by-blow of American phases of the war, beginning with the period from the initial invasion after 9/11 through the 2003 Iraq War. Then came the 2006 Taliban offensive that triggered the troop surge of 2007. The author gives the most detailed coverage to Obama’s surge, which included 140,000 troops (compared to Bush’s 30,000) and was marked by various resets and reallocations. Malkasian focuses on the southern province of Helmand, where he spent nearly two years as a civilian adviser. In the final chapters, the author looks at Trump’s drawdown and the 2019-2020 peace talks. Malkasian is clear on why those talks succeeded: “It is not the battlefield stalemate or diplomatic prowess. It is Donald Trump….More than other any other US politician, he was willing to buck criticism and demand that the United States leave.” Perhaps the war wouldn’t have been so costly if this had happened sooner, but Malkasian concedes that there was never an easy way out. Mismanagement, tribalism, and refusals to leave have all fed “the combat experience of a generation of US servicemen and women.” For the Afghan people, the experience has been nothing short of catastrophic.
A sweeping, deeply researched account that will gratify specialists and nonspecialists alike.Pub Date: July 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-755077-9
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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