Real-life perspectives on the immersive, unifying, and chancy culture of fraternities.
The author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities (2004) returns to campus to continue to sift through the realities and misconceptions of Greek life.
In this natural follow-up toPledged, investigative reporter and public speaker Robbins (The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital, 2015, etc.) turns her attention to the often problematic, scandalized, and controversial fraternal brotherhoods. Hoping to demystify the negative public images these associations have historically generated, the author interviewed scores of young men both currently and formerly involved in Greek chapters. Through their experiences, Robbins explores the countless stereotypical complications of these groups. She presents often compelling profiles of men navigating the processes and pressures of rushing, pledging, and troubleshooting the hypermasculine fraternity culture and the rigid guidelines of collegiate social engagement. Refreshingly, the author never sugarcoats the intensive pledging process and addresses the prevalence of widespread racism, female objectification, and sexual assault within chapters all across the country. The book presents the experiences of men like Jake, a searching, introverted, socially timid freshman who “craved the bonds of a brotherhood”; Oliver, a chapter president eager to hone his leadership talents; and numerous other voices of those who pledged allegiance to their respective frat houses, with mixed results. Robbins astutely examines the stigma of hazing rituals, impulsive and stress-driven drinking patterns, and rigidly enforced house loyalties. Conversely, she highlights the more positive (and less-recognized) bonding and brotherhood benefits of fraternity participation and the prioritized importance of sorority relations. She also points out fraternal chapters that welcome more diverse members, including LGBTQ pledges. Though the narrative presents little that will be viewed as new or illuminating for any adult reader who attended college, much of the material will be useful and informative for college-prep students and their parents (a final section provides advice for both groups).
Real-life perspectives on the immersive, unifying, and chancy culture of fraternities.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-98672-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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