Rating: 
Summary: Journalism is Not History
Review: At 649 pages (not including notes),this is the lengthiest and most detailed account of the Frank case ever written. That does not make it definitive. An historian's skills are needed to place this 90 year-old crime in its context, explore its sectarian and sociological mysteries and draw out its lasting implications. Unfortunately, author Steve Oney is merely a journalist: his talents begin and end with investigative research and reportage. He explains in exhaustive and often unnecessary detail exactly what happened; he fails to plumb the why. In some ways, historian Albert Lindemann's 37-page chapter on the Frank case in his book The Jew Accused is more illuminating and more absorbing than all of Oney's 649 pages.And The Dead Shall Rise reads like an elephantine magazine article, an impression reinforced by its slangy newspaper style which ranges from the inoffensively breezy to the gratingly vulgar without once attaining the dignity of tragedy or of history. Oney's research has been thorough (though his bibliography strangely fails to mention the two most recent books on the Frank case) and his narrative works as True Crime (though a diagram of the murder scene would have been helpful). And he deserves credit for uncovering and revealing the identities and strategems of the men who lynched Leo Frank. But this revelation, important and outrageous as it is, takes up only a fraction of the book. Elsewhere Oney's just-the-facts approach is deadening. Nor can he evoke a bygone time and place: those who wish to know what Atlanta was like at the turn of the last century will not be gratified here. The extreme and scarifying South becomes a bland and shadowy precinct within the covers of this book, where the dead stubbornly refuse to rise.
Rating: 
Summary: finally the truth
Review: DEtailed and analytical approach to an event in history that has implications today. The history of the great southern tragedy that has stimatized the good people of Atlanta even now. It's unfortunate that so much hate still exists today because of this time in US history
Rating:
Summary: finally the truth
Review: DEtailed and analytical approach to an event in history that has implications today. The history of the great southern tragedy that has stimatized the good people of Atlanta even now. It's unfortunate that so much hate still exists today because of this time in US history
Rating:
Summary: A LONG AWAITED HISTORY
Review: I came across an article on this book in the Atlanta paper, and since my family lived in the area in 1913, I've grown up on stories of the murder of Mary Phagan, and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank, which captured the imagination of the south much like the JonBenet Ramsey case captured America a few years ago. I had hoped that this new study of the murder would cast even more light on the subjection, and was not disappointed. I can't imagine a more thorough look into this strange and contradictory case, all well-documented and written with a calm and straight-forward eye. I've read one previous book on the murder, but this one is far and away superior, with even Leo Frank himself speaking from the grave, as it were, in the form of letters to his wife Lucille. Until now I'd only seen photographs of him, but from his love letters to his wife, he emerges as thoughtful and cautious, a hardworking young man. It is incredible to read along, knowing that in the end, he'll end up lynched. This book will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in southern history, or crime, or even a glimpse into the history of the city of Atlanta, with its political alliances, and shifting loyalties. Five Stars, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Holy Cow. I agree with "Twisted and Torn" from Atlanta
Review: I couldn't agree more with "Twisted & Torn." This book to me is the newspaper-man-investigative-reporter-gone-wild syndrome to the extreme. Mr. Oney tells the reader WAY more than they need to know, unless, of course, you are writing a thesis on the subject or maybe doing your doctoral degree on the subject. Please, just stick to the facts. There's plenty there to make a story. I don't need to know about the background of every character entering the picture.
Rating:
Summary: This is a heartwrenching story that anyone should read
Review: I grew up in Atlanta and heard this story whispered. Steve Oney has researched this so thoroughly. It has always been a story that has been shrouded in shame. I'm so sorry that the people who lynched Leo Frank (and they lynched him in so many ways) were never punished. I'm sorry that families like my own were too afraid to speak up and challenge the powerbrokers. I hope that readers will see the good people as well as the evil ones. I hope that Leo Frank will forgive us all for our silence.
Rating:
Summary: This is a heartwrenching story that anyone should read
Review: I grew up in Atlanta and heard this story whispered. Steve Oney has researched this so thoroughly. It has always been a story that has been shrouded in shame. I'm so sorry that the people who lynched Leo Frank (and they lynched him in so many ways) were never punished. I'm sorry that families like my own were too afraid to speak up and challenge the powerbrokers. I hope that readers will see the good people as well as the evil ones. I hope that Leo Frank will forgive us all for our silence.
Rating:
Summary: And the Dead Shall Rise
Review: I'm from Atlanta, and became interested in the Leo Frank case as a teen in the '50s. I remember many of the actual buildings before they were destroyed to make way for the "New" Atlanta. I read every book, newspaper account, court report, and Internet account that I could find. This book is the best of the best. Oney puts you on the streets and in the buildings of Atlanta at the turn of the last century. He introduces you to the characters and makes you aware of the shifting intrigue and alliances. This is more than a book about little Mary Phagan and Leo Frank - it is a small glimpse of the times. You see the affects of child labor, workweeks of 66+ hours, wealth, poverty, and class warfare. Both sides of the issue are fully laid out. Before reading this book, I had no doubt that Frank was innocent and Connelly was guilty. Now I'm only sure of one thing - the crowd that took law into its own hands robbed us of ever having a chance to find the whole truth. Everyone seemed to play a part in this travesty - the "keystone" cops, attorneys, judges, newspapers, and everyday citizens. The only true innocent is poor Mary Phagan. Great book - a must read for anyone interested in the history of the industrial revolution coming of age in the new south.
Rating: 
Summary: Pride, prejudice and the loss of innocence
Review: In 1913, the 20th century hardly begun, 13-year-old Mary Phagan is murdered at the pencil factory where she works in Atlanta, Georgia and eventually the man arrested for the crime is lynched by a mob after the governor commutes his death sentence. Such is the bare bones of this tragic episode of crime and punishment gone wrong. However, the evidence is confusing, witnesses untruthful and the people all too willing to scapegoat a young married Jew in their midst, Leo Frank. This murder would be processed like any other crime but for the confluence of circumstances that serve up the innocent Leo Frank as the culprit. While detectives gather often-conflicting evidence and witness statements, the opposing newspapers, north and south, run sensational headlines, describing the atrocities of the murder. Each had an axe to grind in the stories they circulate. The northern papers point to the long history of anti-Semitism in the South and the southern papers editorialize against the outside influence of moneyed capitalists interfering with their home rule. One result of this polarized disagreement: the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League and the infamous Ku Klux Klan. White and black, the good citizens of Atlanta look to Leo Frank, prompted by the fear and hatred of the Jews he represents. As the deeply racial issues focus the force of the town's wrath on an innocent man, most grievous is the unexamined testimony of a black man of questionable repute, testimony that is damning to Frank. Supposedly this witness, Jim Conley, is the only witness to the crime, although there is another witness, one who remains silent until 1983, when Alonzo Mann, 85-years-old, finally admitted that he saw Conley carrying Phagan's lifeless body and that Conley threatened his life if he told. By its very detailed account, And the Dead Shall Rise is an indictment of a warped judicial system in a city blinded by its anti-Semitism, inflamed by facile politicians with private agendas. Political careers are made during the Phagan affair; to date, no one has been indicted for the abduction and lynching of Leo Frank. However, this book does what none other has accomplished: Oney names the politicians behind the lynching as well as member of the lynch mob. An enormous undertaking, this important book reveals the complex, behind-the-scenes manipulation of events, a stark portrait of greed and political self-promotion. Oney calls it "the conflict that transformed murder into myth", tackling a virtual mountain of court records, affidavits and transcripts, sorting through a constantly shifting landscape of information. Unfortunately, all of the handwritten records were lost over the years, forensic evidence left forever in doubt. Likely the definitive book on the murder of Mary Phagan and the lynching of Leo Frank, And the Dead Shall Rise catalogs the people and events of a shameful time in our history, a story as complicated and dense as the issues that have long divided this country: race, greed and prejudice. Luan Gaines/2003.
Rating:
Summary: Twisted and Torn
Review: Not even half way through the book, I realized the rest of Oney's work would most likely bring me to tears. But not in the way it should.
The book dances around the subject (Oney never does come right out and declare the obvious anti-Semitism - perhaps indicative of journalistic cowardice) and almost ignores the people involved and therefore ignores the history behind the whole ordeal. A compassion or even hatred for the subjects, so important to any work, can never be formed.
That which Oney does feel the need to include (histories of the newspapers, police department, the minor characters and lawyers involved) fills most of the book and eclipses the people at the center of the story: the Franks, the Phagans, Conley and Lee. We are never given a true gasp on who they were, a key component in constructing a historical work. He is trying to be everywhere at once and losing the battle.
Beyond that, the work is concise and to the point - almost too much so and in the wrong areas. Oney never really gets the story; never grasps the case, it's history and its implications. Dry and almost spacey in its pacing, the work becomes more of a challenge than that faced by Frank's redundantly mentioned prosecuters. If a reader is seeking a history of the case and the people at its center, certainly look elsewhere. But if a history of law, journalism and industry is sought than this is the perfect work.
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