An entertaining, cynical critique of cynicism, mostly worth reading for its comedy and brevity.
A brief indictment of what debut author and illustrator Stevenson sees as the global economy’s endemic corruption.
Judging by the current U.S. election season, we’re living in an age of extraordinary discontent, especially regarding the state of the economy. Populist outrage isn’t merely the consequence of economic stagnation or a deficit of opportunity, but also due to an increasingly widespread perception that the system is fatally rigged to benefit a few at the expense of the many. Stevenson offers a tutorial on the history of evolving crookedness from the perspective of “a ranking member of the cynical elite,” essentially confessing to his own complicity in producing inequitability. The confessor divides economic history into four periods: feudalism, mercantilism, capitalism, and cynicism. In the first stage, he says, regnant kings composed the rules without any other aim than the satisfaction of their own interests. However, this enraged the business community, which eventually revolted and rewrote the rules in order to benefit themselves; this period Stevenson calls mercantilism. The success of mercantilism and the expansion of key markets, he says, led to capitalism, featuring rules written to provide crucial advantages to private enterprise. However, even though this system, at least in its original incarnation, ended up producing a more expansive roster of winners, many were still disenfranchised, Stevenson notes. Out of capitalism, he continues, comes the current age, cynicism, in which a surfeit of capital and the fear of dimming prospects inspired the robber barons of business to rewrite the rules yet again. Much of the book is devoted to candidly explaining these new rules, which amount to various kinds of mountebankery, rhetorical manipulation, and exploitation. The whole work also features cartoonish, consistently hilarious illustrations. The book is dotted with cheeky, wryly delivered advice, sure to please readers whether they share the author’s cynicism or not: “Remember kid, if you borrow enough money it’s the lender that has the problem.” However, this short, unremittingly (and admittedly) pessimistic book provides nothing new or particularly rigorous for readers interested in understanding our current economic doldrums; it’s more a complaint than a lesson. It’s a very funny complaint, delivered with style, but one without nuance or disciplined scrupulousness.
An entertaining, cynical critique of cynicism, mostly worth reading for its comedy and brevity.Pub Date: April 25, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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