A well-researched but overly dense account of the impact of NFTs on the art market.
An in-depth exposé of the recent multibillion-dollar surge and explosive crash in the speculative realms of digital art and crypto finance.
New York Times reporter Small dissects the recent history of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and their significant effect on the investment art community, initiated by the sale of a digital artwork compilation at Christie's in 2021 for $69.3 million. “It was an outrageous sum for digital art—the kind of world record that raises conspiracy theories about the motives of its buyers and sellers,” writes the author. “Suddenly the art market was on the fulcrum of decentralized finance, splitting its weight between the invading crypto billionaires and the ancien régime of traditional art collectors. But auctioneers tipped the balance in favor of the new money, scrambling to find a historical precedent for their new cash cow.” In this sprawling narrative maze, Small profiles a diverse range of digital artists as well as other influential and often shadowy players across the finance, entertainment, tech, and gaming industries. They also expand the context with forays into pivotal movements in art history, a summary of the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of the crypto economy. Throughout, Small sharply critiques the erosion of art collecting's prestige by sellers and investors driven by insatiable greed. “The NFT explosion,” writes the author, “had begun with a deadly symmetry exposing culture’s worst tendencies: toward trustlessness, toward scarcity, toward desperation and sycophancy…criminals took advantage of the zeitgeist and errant entrepreneurs played at expertise.” In their meticulously documented exploration, Small reveals insights hinting at a compelling core story. However, the intricate details and tech-speak will overwhelm many general readers. In the hands of a more seasoned storyteller such as Michael Lewis, the material would resonate with a wider audience.
A well-researched but overly dense account of the impact of NFTs on the art market.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536759
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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