Description:
Named One of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 by the Los Angeles Times
A premier historian penetrates the fog of corruption and cover-up still surrounding the murder of a Stanford University founder to establish who did it, how, and why.
Brief description: Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the LA Times Book Prize and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and lives in Los Angeles, California.
Review Quotes: Offering a detective story with more twists and turns than a Dashiell Hammett novel, Mr. White leads us through his research into the labyrinth. Along the way, [he] uncovers a century-long campaign kicked off by the university's first president to cloud the circumstances of Jane Stanford's death....[A] brilliant, acerbic guide into a world that resonates with the present, ...Mr. White has done an astonishing job of sifting through the available clues--and turning up an impressive array of new details. In this fascinating 'whydunit, ' he makes a convincing case for why Jane Stanford's murder was covered up for so long.--Julia Flynn Siler "Wall Street Journal"