Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

30 reviews

billyjepma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious slow-paced

5.0

A taut, dramatic, and excruciating dive into the countless horrible acts of violence inflicted by white Americans on the Osage Indian Nation. Grann's research is comprehensive, and his writing here is as sharp as anything I've encountered in my (admittedly meager) dips into non-fiction. His book occupies a fascinating place between hard-hitting investigative journalism—which is thrilling, by the way—and moving, often nauseating retellings of a history I barely knew a thing about. I love how grand the scale of the book is and how it centers the stories of so many people and gives them the respect, grace, and closure history denied them. The final section of the book messes with the propulsive pacing of the first two as they settle into the more traditional structure of a whodunnit, but it's in that section where the most meaningful bits of commentary are found. The FBI might claim to have ended the "Years of Terror," but the truth is far bloodier than that, and the closure the American government provided was a half-measure that dismissed countless unsolved murders into the dark annals of history.

Part of me wanted Grann to lean further into his political leanings, specifically regarding the FBI, as my outrage at the truths the book illuminates made me eager for some scathing rebuttal or judgment. But I'm glad Grann has more restraint than me, as his approach is far more effective and searing than any commentary could be, especially considering how damning the hard facts of the story are. And to his credit, the historical details and quotes he uses in the section documenting the FBI's development speak volumes to his opinion of the thing. Even Tom White, the "hero" of the FBI investigation that resulted in meaningful arrests, is a flawed person who, as Grann smartly and briefly acknowledges at one point, eventually settles into the same lifestyle as the people he's often quoted as detecting. 

I'm incredibly glad I read this (or, rather, listened to the excellent audiobook), and in an ideal world, I would love to assume that it becomes mandatory reading. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Death, and Hate crime

Moderate: Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Child death, Gun violence, Grief, Gaslighting, Stalking, and Domestic abuse

dani_reis's review against another edition

dark emotional informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Murder, and Medical content

Moderate: Gun violence and Death

Minor: Alcohol

jamiejanae_6's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Genocide, and Racism

Minor: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death of parent, Deportation, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, and Medical content

markedwithanm's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Cancer, Chronic illness, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Gun violence, Classism, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, and Violence

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

4.75

Y'all WHAT. How did I never hear about this??? (Which is rhetorical because obviously the essentially genocide of the Osage would of course not be covered in my white history classes.) I'll definitely be revisiting this book because a lot of the sentiment toward Native people still exist today and we need to be much more aware of the total destruction that racism can cause. God. If this was a novel, I would have a hard time believing it. It's that intricate and horrific. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Xenophobia, War, Violence, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, Murder, Alcohol, Misogyny, Chronic illness, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Bullying, Classism, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Child death, Stalking, Addiction, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Kidnapping, Medical content, Alcoholism, and Car accident

stevia333k's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

Look this is a history book, not a fictional mystery novel, this whole review is spoilers because I used the book for studying, not entertainment.

most of my review discusses the 1st & 3rd chronicles because I did not understand what happened in the 2nd chronicle at all. The 2nd chronicle is the longest & it gives context about the limitations on David Grann's investigations, but again, it was too complicated which spoiler

it's because there were multiple scalping businesses involved with a limited number of rubber stampers, which means from a dictatorship of the white bourgeois patriarchy perspective things were working as intended (such as with settler colonization) even if at the surface, it appeared to just be terrorist attacks. Basically take note in the 1st chronicle of what  Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote in her memoirs about how her father & the adults in her community were operating with disregard to the laws of the "Indian country" they moved to. So this meant that the assumptions the investigation had at the beginning did not match the reality of what was happening, so it just read to me of violence & corpses instead of being able to keep track of what was up.

Please consider these limitations.

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So the book is very informative, in fact, I'm using it to get a gist on other "custodial" arrangements. I do need to say that I'm a white person studying anti-racism & therefore you'll need to listen to people of color when needed. I usually read history books to get a sense of the systemic. I don't like spending a lot of time on single crimes... I wanted to learn about the syndicate because I had learned before reading this book that native americans are wary about marrying settlers because of the risk of femicide, MMIWG2SMB/MMIP cases.

The 1st chronicle explains how the media coverage of the Osage described them as wastefully wealthy & also explains how this was a continuation of the settler colonization that sent the Osage & other nations onto smaller & smaller reservations. Among other examples, it cites "little house on the prarie" where the dad explains to the daughter that the moved onto "indian" territory with the intent to not only disregard the laws of the "indian" nations because they wanted to be among the first in line for USA federal homestead rations basically. This is in addition to describing various femicides against the Osage nation. 

Also mind you, while this book doesn't quote it, I have read a political-economy book called "red meat nation" & the first part of a biography called "black elk: the life of an american visionary" by joe jackson, and basically the gist of a tactic of USA's colonization was to basically destroy the land & foodstuff access of the first nations, run them into reservations/concentration camps, and then in order to play up how the first nations were "unproductive" with their land (which then plays into the sort of liberalism/capitalism that's behind "eminent domain") would then give as promised rations (the promises were usually broken, but the rations USA did give) would include things like raw meat or bad meat, and the starving captives would eat eagerly. This starvation was then played up in USA's media as being some sort of confirmation of the "degeneration" trope, used to uphold white supremacy. Like the starvation was so bad that it was famine. Even among the buffalo, Joe Jackson's book shared that the pecking order among buffalo used to reduce conflict & death was being rejected ending with the predictable death, which if we've seen anything from "late victorian holocausts" by mike davis & "night" by elie wiesel this is in line with that. I think if we're going to look for other examples within non-settler colonization, then look at how the media plays into Orientalism when it comes to other places with oil.

So yeah, the media about the Osage nation's oil boom was basically propaganda seeking to encourage settler colonization through taking away the oil rights of the Osage people by any means necessary. Usually this has been done via the private sector through contracts, because the public domain of say eminent domain & signing away mineral rights (like we see with various examples of environmental racism) would require governments that look more racial capitalist patriarchal like USA's as opposed to say something like the Haudonsaunee Kayanereko:wa where they've have a more consultative government.

The 2nd chronicle because the subject matter lends itself to diagrams as opposed to spoken word. I couldn't keep up with that portion. The word format might be good for conveying the generational trauma that's been inflicted onto the Osage & other nations, as well as showing the limits of the FBI investigations. But again it felt like trying to explain what happened on a battlefield without a map to diagram with. Also admittedly, I don't like watching cop procedurals because of how systemically bastardly they are. My struggle with reading comprehension with this chronicle is why this book is only 4 out of 5 stars.

The 3rd chronicle ends up explaining how settlers would work in packs in order to secure custodial rights of Osage people's mineral rights & then kill said Osage people. They worked in packs like small businesses, and some of the "corruption" of white-coat doctors recording opium poisoning as alcohol poisoning & black-coat undertakers burying the bodies quickly, was functionally notaries for these scalping businesses. The money was so large that the killer settlers could just split the money many ways.
 
I guess basically, when you're looking at how accomplices of mass incarceration & colonialism work, recognize that the white-coats, the blue-coats, and the black-coats are all complicit agents. "Follow the money" means in more sociological mapping: There are other complicit areas, but basically recognize that the fungibility of cash & the consolidation of various currencies into 1 standard, mean not only is cash an assilimation method of racial capitalist patriarchy, but its interchangeability will show relationships which develop into abuse. The same cash can be used to buy baby formula & ammo for a massacure. The custodial policy is literally how they were able to make the capital part fall back into white supremacist control, as well as say capitalism's ableism, etc. Another similar technique for this sort of thing is inflation & the bourgeoisie collectively raising prices in order to keep their positionality/rank if not just increase profits.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual violence, Trafficking, War, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Racism, Ableism, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Grief, Blood, Murder, Police brutality, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Terminal illness, and Torture

cait's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Torture, Drug use, Alcoholism, Blood, Car accident, Gaslighting, Racism, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Genocide, Grief, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Stalking, Violence, Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Classism, Colonisation, Confinement, Child death, Medical content, Murder, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

wai's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Medical content, Infidelity, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Murder, Death, Alcohol, Gun violence, Genocide, Emotional abuse, Violence, Racism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Hate crime, and Blood

sassyshark's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Colonisation, Genocide, Grief, Death, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, and Racism

nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Set in Oklahoma atop the underground oil reserve that existed under the Osage territory, this true crime book follows a series of murders that compose a disturbing conspiracy that reigned and raged across the Osage community in the 1920s. A tremendously wealthy community--due in large part to the "headright" system that granted each Osage Native American a share of the oil profits--the Osage suffered a horrific series of mysterious deaths and obvious murders, beginning in 1921 and spanning several years, creating a widespread sense of paranoia and drawing in the nascent FBI. 

I loved the first section of this book, which set the scene and introduced the characters with a wonderful sense of suspense. I was fascinated by this story that I had never heard before, and I didn't want to turn the book off to go to work! However, the subsequent sections were disappointing. The second section, at least nominally, addressed the development of the FBI, as suggested in the subtitle of the book, but I found this part incredibly hard to follow and lacking in detail. Indeed, from the text of the book, it seemed that the FBI existed long before its pursuit of this case, and I didn't entirely understand the connection. The third section of the book was essentially an unnecessarily long Author's Note, reviewing Grann's research and writing process. I love Author's Notes in general, but this was a bit too much and simply established uncertainty regarding the research. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Murder, and Toxic relationship