A well-researched account that strikes a nice balance between description and analysis.
The authors of Rabid return with an examination of the historical shift in attitudes of Americans toward animals.
Wasik, editorial director of the New York Times Magazine, and Murphy, a veterinarian, focus on the mid to late 1800s, when “America was collectively waking up to animal suffering….It was as if, in the span of little more than a decade, animals had gone from being seen as objects, mere things that humans were justified in treating however they might like, to being creatures whose joys and sufferings had to be taken into consideration.” However, this social movement did not occur without resistance. Horses carrying heavy loads down increasingly busy streets were frequently treated cruelly, dogfighting was a common form of entertainment, and live rabbits were used by medical schools for demonstrations. This era also saw the rapid decrease in the bison population as white settlers expanded into the frontier, and countless American birds were “being slaughtered wholesale for the cause of fashion.” Wasik and Murphy explore all of these topics compassionately. Central to the discussion is Henry Bergh, who founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1866. The authors describe the “unexpected” and sometimes contentious relationship between Bergh and showman P.T. Barnum, and they report how the “grim, poorly ventilated” slaughterhouses in Chicago were initially met by the public with “a strange sort of fascination.” Wasik and Murphy share the contributions of other activists that “propelled the anti-cruelty cause forward,” including Philadelphian Caroline Earle White and Bostonian Emily Appleton, who were successful in establishing local chapters of the ASPCA, and George T. Angell, editor of Our Dumb Animals, an unusually named publication that ran for more than 80 years, advocating for their humane treatment.
A well-researched account that strikes a nice balance between description and analysis.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780525659068
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
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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