fundamental problems that have usually forced great powers into catastrophic predicaments.
In this timely book, noted Asian specialist Johnson (Japan: Who Governs?, 1994) addresses the effects of American global
interventionism, delivering a grim warning that the United States will soon experience severe reprisals (or "blowback") from the victims of government policies kept secret from the American people. Johnson begins his book with a confession. He admits that as a naval officer after the Korean War, and as an academic who studied the formation of Chinese communism, he was not in a position to witness the results of American power disinterestedly. In fact, he wholeheartedly shared the assumption that America was the necessary guarantor of world peace. Only after his pathbreaking exploration of Japan's economic renewal in MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1973) did he conclude that the US mission to protect the "free world" was a justification for empire. This insight became especially clear in the wake of the Cold War. That the US has not significantly reduced or adjusted its military position after the fall of the Soviet Union reveals, to Johnson, this country's imperialistic aims. Moreover, he argues that American fat-headedness is not just confined to the upper echelons of the State Department. From rape in Okinawa to the imposition of economic austerity in Indonesia (followed by the quick purchase of its industrial plant on easy terms), Johnson sees the imperialistic mentality as the defining style of American actions and expectations abroad. In order to curb imminent and massive blowback, he calls for a more humble American presence—both militarily and psychologically—in the world. However, one has to wonder about the value of Johnson's dissent: Is humility a realistic solution to the tangle of issues that this nation has persistently involved itself in for half a century? Engrossing and at the same time alarming, Johnson's well-researched book nevertheless presents an easy solution to
fundamental problems that have usually forced great powers into catastrophic predicaments.Pub Date: March 14, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-6238-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2000
The benefit of slavery is but one of the firebombs lobbed within a book that more are likely to find infuriating than...
A conservative professor of economics and public policy argues that conventional attitudes about racism and social injustice are not only wrong, but harmful as well, in an analysis that will spark outrage among the liberal intellectuals that he targets.
Sowell (The Housing Boom and Bust, 2009, etc.) understates the case when he writes that he has arrived at “many conclusions very different from those currently prevailing in the media, in politics or in academia.” The result of that common liberal consensus, he charges, “has been a steady drumbeat of grievance and victimhood ideologies, from the media, from educational institutions and from other institutions permeated by the vision of the intelligentsia.” As a member of the media, an educator, an intellectual and a black man (who often writes about racial issues from a conservative perspective), Sowell relishes his role as provocateur. Of course, the author’s version of truth serves an agenda suggesting that the black community might have been better off before initiatives such as civil rights and affirmative action and that blaming society for the inequities suffered by minorities represents “a long tradition of intellectuals who more or less automatically transform differences into inequities and inequities into the evils or shortcomings of society.” Even if blacks have less opportunity than whites, achieve less and commit more crime, he writes, these are not the results of oppression, and they can’t be resolved by “a lifestyle of dependency.” Instead, “those who lag, for whatever reasons, face a daunting task of bringing themselves up to the rest of society in knowledge, skills and experience—and in the attitudes necessary to acquire this knowledge and these skills and experience.” In other words, the problem isn’t white racism but black attitudes.
The benefit of slavery is but one of the firebombs lobbed within a book that more are likely to find infuriating than enlightening.Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-465-05872-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of...
From the second woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, a collection of writings ranging from the slight to the serious.
Now 83, women’s rights icon Ginsburg nears the close of her distinguished career as a law professor, appellate advocate, judge, and justice, arguably having done more to move our law in the direction of gender equality than any living person. Now, as two Georgetown Law professors, Hartnett and Williams (emerita) prepare her official biography, they have collected Ginsburg’s speeches, lectures, articles, and opinions, some on offer here. They preface most of this material with explanatory, wholly complimentary notes and begin with a chapter of juvenilia, demonstrating Ginsburg’s early interest in human rights and in preserving individual liberties. Passages devoted to “the lighter side” of life at the Supreme Court include, for example, Ginsburg’s musings on lawyers depicted in opera, not least her own “starring” role in Scalia/Ginsburg. There follows a section on “waypavers” and “pathmarkers,” Ginsburg’s tributes to, among others, Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, Gloria Steinem, “the face of feminism,” and Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s first woman justice. Especially good are the author’s observations on the court’s “Jewish seat” and her charming lecture on four notable Supreme Court wives. These, and many other agreeable selections, are characterized as “remarks,” delivered and often recycled for various audiences. The collection also contains numerous bench announcements, summaries of some of Ginsburg’s most consequential opinions and dissents, and a few revealing essays that offer keys to her jurisprudence: for example, her perspective on the role of dissents, the value of consulting foreign law, and the wisdom of “measured motions” by the judiciary, wherein she mildly criticizes Roe v. Wade for provoking a backlash and halting “a political process that was moving in a reform direction.”
Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of interest from this icon of women’s rights.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4524-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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