Killers of the Flower Moon - The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by David Grann
I came into this book expecting to learn about how the FBI first formed and its development history with cold facts. The book actually focuses far more on the Osage Murders and the struggles of the Osage. It’s an under-documented piece of history about how the exploitation of Native Americans continued long after surface abuses stopped.
Most of the book was rather unmemorable except for the final part where the author explores other murders in the same period, which numbers near the hundreds. That got me thinking about the larger hidden currents of each story that we hear, especially political. To take a recent event, let’s look at Trump’s pardons. What did Trump’s pardons really signify? What stopped him from pardoning others? Where were his pardons concentrated? Does it show who influences him? Perhaps there is no clear, correct answer to all of those questions but to even attempt to answer them requires an incredible amount knowledge and the reward is a clear vision of Trump’s future plans.
Regardless, I think this is a great book to read as a story and to learn a bit more about an forgotten corner of American history.
5/10
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