A rigorous moral reckoning falters by leaving out half of the equation.
A poet and critic argues that an academic idea has alchemized into jet fuel for antisemitism.
In this slim, carefully argued book, Kirsch contends that the notion of settler colonialism is now a lethal ideology, drunk on its own violence. An editor at the Wall Street Journal, Kirsch says this danger burst into view in the widespread global response to Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 Israeli Jews on Oct. 7, 2023. “In a time of terrible grief and anger, the ideas discussed here may seem abstract,” he writes, “but in the long term, nothing does more than our ideas to determine the ways we feel and act.” He describes a “frank enthusiasm for violence against Israeli civilians” in much of the current political discourse, asserting that “it’s impossible to understand progressive politics today without grasping the idea of settler colonialism and the worldview that derives from it.” Kirsch identifies its most famous construct, from Patrick Wolfe, a British-born Australian scholar. Wolfe wrote in 1968 that settler colonialism is enacted when “the colonizers came to stay—invasion is a structure not an event.” Scholars pointed this lens initially at Australia, Canada, and the United States. Kirsch sees land acknowledgments as one voguish thread. Others have critiqued land acknowledgments as toothless moral theater, appealing to American Puritanism. But when the settler colonialism lens is applied to Israel, the Jewish state is deemed to be illegitimate, outraging Jewish citizens who see these contested spaces as home. Such seemingly innocuous practices as land acknowledgments, Kirsch argues, lead to young people harassing their Jewish peers on college campuses. They “are not ashamed of themselves for the same reason that earlier generations were not ashamed to persecute and kill Jews—because they have been taught that it is an expression of virtue.” Kirsch, who often writes about Jewish ideas, believes there is “no true indigeneity.” He writes compellingly, laying out his arguments with the care of a poet. But by keeping his focus assiduously off of Israel’s lethal assault on Gaza—and the wider issue of Palestinian suffering—the author dilutes his case.
A rigorous moral reckoning falters by leaving out half of the equation.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781324105343
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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