An excellent introduction to the power of public dissent.
A look at how activism has changed the world.
Activists Leonard and Carothers’ book, published by the politically engaged retailer Patagonia, is, they write, an invitation “to defend the right to protest as a foundation of civil society” and “to step forward and experience for yourself the formidable power of protest.” The book chronicles more than 40 protests throughout history, beginning in 1738 with Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay’s pioneering and theatrical tactics to demonstrate against slavery. The authors write about some of history’s most recognizable protests: the Boston Tea Party, Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March, and Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem. But more interesting are the demonstrations that readers might not have heard about, including San Francisco’s 504 Sit-In—a 1977 watershed moment for the disability rights movement—and the 1991 installation of a giant condom on U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms’ house to protest the North Carolina Republican’s virulently homophobic positions. Interspersed are essays from activists, including Jane Fonda, Dolores Huerta, and Rebecca Solnit; particularly moving is one by Indigenous activist Nemonte Nenquimo, who writes, “The dominant civilization today values the oil and gold underneath our forest more than our knowledge, our stories and songs, more than our connection to the land and community, more than us as a people.” An afterword by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich brings the message home to the modern day: “Resistance is more important now than ever….Tyrants cannot succeed where people refuse to submit to them.” The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs from protests around the world, and Leonard and Carothers do a great job explaining why each action they write about deserves to be remembered and replicated. This would be a perfect introduction to protesting for budding activists, but those who have been involved with social justice movements will find much to love, as well.
An excellent introduction to the power of public dissent.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781952338335
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Patagonia
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
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
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
PERSPECTIVES
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