An accessible introduction to institutional racism in the United States and its ongoing effects.
A psychiatrist explores the legacy of American racism in this second edition of his nonfiction book.
“The problem with America is not that there are too many non-White people,” author D’Agostino asserts. “The problem is that White people are afraid of change and have given up on democracy.” As a white Catholic born in 1940s Chicago, the author notes, he “almost always voted Republican” in Illinois state elections, and he sees himself as “representative of elderly White American males.” After the election of Donald Trump and the growth of the racial justice movement after the death of George Floyd, the author began a journey of self-reflection and contemplation about race in America. The book includes a discussion of how he grappled with Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility (2018), and explicitly offers white readers a “primer” on how America’s racial history continues to affect the present. The book’s emphasis on precise terminology will be useful for readers who are unfamiliar. This well-researched book draws on the work of contemporary academics who challenge the conflation of the term racism with prejudice. Prejudice, they note, refers to an unfavorable opinion towards a group, often based on stereotypes, but racism historically manifests as an institutionalized doctrine through government policy. Much of the book centers on the American history of Black and white people, but D’Agostino also devotes chapters in this updated edition to prejudices against women, immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ communities.
The author has a solid grasp of U.S. history and uses it to explore such topics as the connection between wartime propaganda and Japanese internment camps, and the role of the eugenics movement in fostering racist policies. Perhaps most convincing is the book’s argument that there’s “both financial and political gain in maintaining inequality, and racial inequality sells best,” noting that for many white men, there’s a “tangible benefit” in preserving the status quo. This is the reason, according to the author, that many white Christians “are willing to give up on democracy” to embrace an “authoritarian government,” as they see it as their “only way to preserve their vision of culture.” The book won’t be revelatory for readers who are already aware of the insidious legacy of racism, but it excels at introducing the subject to its intended audience of skeptical white men. Its concluding chapter, “The White Man’s Dilemma,” offers a poignant reflection on the concept of white guilt, highlighting differences between guilt and shame and reminding readers that the purpose of the latter is to “behave better in the present.” D’Agostino admits that he’s not a scholar on the subject of racism or prejudice, but his background as a medical doctor and former president of the Illinois Psychiatric Society brings a learned approach, which blends nuanced analysis with a down-to-earth, conversational writing style. The stories of his personal history with race and prejudice may not appeal to those whose backgrounds and identities differ from his, but they may offer a valuable perspective to his target audience.
An accessible introduction to institutional racism in the United States and its ongoing effects.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798886546453
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Page Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
