A well-curated collection with many ideas for ways large and small to save the planet.
A welcome anthology, in prose and verse, of women’s writings on climate change.
At the outset, marine biologist Johnson, founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, and teacher Wilkinson, vice president of Project Drawdown, write that the political and social constructs that oppress women are one and the same with those that are wreaking havoc on the global environment: “Dominance, supremacy, violence, extraction, egotism, greed, ruthless competition—these hallmarks of patriarchy fuel the climate crisis just as surely as they do inequality, colluding with racism along the way.” There’s no such zero-sum game-playing here. The editors observe that women are well equipped to transcend ego and competition in order to create a politics of “heart-centered, not just head-centered, leadership.” Many of the writings that follow celebrate Indigenous ways of knowing: Mexico-born Xiye Bastida, for example, invokes her Otomi-Toltec ancestors to advocate a “shift in culture and mindset.” She argues vigorously for intersectional activism and eschews any form of exclusive politics that further marginalizes the disenfranchised. Penobscot writer Sherri Mitchell emphasizes the importance of recognizing that “we are all inextricably linked” while Joy Harjo, the first Native poet laureate, raises a number of provocative questions for would-be political leaders—e.g., “Do you have authority by the original keepers of the lands, those who obey natural law and are in the service of the lands on which you stand?” If not, the leader has no business in the job. Some writers—Naomi Klein, say—are more grounded in scientific and political approaches, and poet Emily Johnston delivers a needed caution: We can work diligently and still not solve the monumental problems we face, but that is no excuse not to do it: “There is too much we need to heal, and we have to change the path that we’re on. We have beautiful work to do before we die.” Other contributors include Ada Limón, Kendra Pierre-Louis, Varshini Prakash, and Mary Oliver.
A well-curated collection with many ideas for ways large and small to save the planet.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-23706-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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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