Fresh, provocative thinking on the “Arab problem.”
Why can’t the Islamic world be more secular and liberal like “we” are?
Atlantic contributing writer Hamid (Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East, 2014), senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and vice chair of the Project on Middle East Democracy, asks some obvious yet startling questions regarding the debate over Islamism. Many Westerners assume that the cataclysm in the Middle East following the Arab Spring and the rise of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq will eventually smooth into a secular, liberal future, because this is the way it has played out in the West—e.g., the Protestant Reformation allowed Europe “to shed its religious demons” and paved the way for the Enlightenment and modern liberalism. This is progress, Westerners assume, yet Hamid argues sagely that Islam is uniquely resistant to these forces because it already underwent a “reformation” in the late 19th century as a response “to the challenges of secularism, European colonialism, and the creeping authoritarianism of the late Ottoman era.” Boldly, the author argues that Islam is perhaps the most modern religion of all, since Mohammad, “armed with God’s speech,” instituted a “fierce egalitarianism” that allowed women to own property and earn their own income; mandated charity, redistribution of income, and social security for the elderly; and, most strikingly, stressed direct access to God without intercession of church or formal clergy. Moreover, Hamid asserts, the Islamic tradition already has a rich tradition of democracy—i.e., shura, or consensus. While Christianity never had a built-in conception of law, governance, and state-building—in fact, it was opposed to state legitimacy—Islam fashioned an organic political framework. Islam, in short, does not function like Christianity, and why should it? The faith of these believers remains remarkable, and Hamid emphasizes how in Indonesia and Malaysia the Islamists thrive in a pluralistic democracy. The author looks especially at the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in trying to work (unsuccessfully) within secular state bounds.
Fresh, provocative thinking on the “Arab problem.”Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-06101-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
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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