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

A student passed this book on to me. Incredible story about the Osage murders of the 1920s, and the involvement of the nascent FBI. Early staff of FBI solved the case, but left many stones unturned. The facts of the story tell an unrelentingly grim history of how settlers, often in collusion with local officials and law-enforcement and judges, used violence and corruption to leave a trail of tears. Reading this 100 years after the events should still fill every American with shame. Libertarian types especially should be confronted, over and over, with this historical record. Their naive self-serving “clean slate” rhetoric is maddening.

About mkevane

Economist at Santa Clara University and Director of Friends of African Village Libraries.
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