While the legal principles presented remain sound, the commentary on controversies that were topical in the 1980s and ’90s...
Vigorous, principled defenses of freedom of expression from a long career in the legal trenches.
Eminent attorney Abrams (Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment, 2005) aptly describes this book as "a potpourri of my published and unpublished speeches, public debates, testimony, reviews, letters and the like about the First Amendment,” though of the six freedoms guaranteed there, he covers only freedom of speech and of the press. The author has been litigating these issues at the highest levels for over 40 years; he was part of the team that argued the “Pentagon Papers” case, as he often reminds us. The various pieces, which go back as far as 1978, are arranged topically and include consideration of such issues as dangers to national security, libel, copyright and the protection of reporters’ sources. Most were written for general readership, and Abrams presents his views in clear language. Unfortunately, the format ensures that much material will be repetitious, with the same cases and quotations frequently reappearing. The author often presents himself as something of a First Amendment absolutist, so his arguments have the advantage of clarity with only a dash of nuance. He wholeheartedly accepts the proposition that, outside of clearly recognized, exceptional categories, our government is generally foreclosed from preventing or punishing speech, however dishonest, dangerous or obnoxious. As any skilled attorney’s presentation will, Abrams’ positions can appear self-evident in the absence of rebuttal from the other side. Indeed, the most interesting pieces are those few in which the opposition is heard directly, as in a discussion on pornography, or where the opposing position is well-known, as in Abrams’ ringing defense of the widely reviled Citizens United opinion.
While the legal principles presented remain sound, the commentary on controversies that were topical in the 1980s and ’90s too often sounds dated and suggests that Abrams is largely serving warmed-over material from an illustrious past.Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-300-19087-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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