A sleek, well-rendered work to wake readers up to the plight of the Lebanese people.
A French Lebanese professor and author assesses a catastrophic summer in his hometown.
As the economic meltdown intensified in a city already suffering from political and social strife, the situation was further compounded by the pandemic and the shattering explosion that occurred at the Beirut port on Aug. 4, 2020. In a stylistically arresting, truncated first-person narrative, Majdalani lays bare the saga of modern-day Beirut since it gained independence from the French mandate in 1945. The city’s “singular identity…also proved to be Lebanon’s defining characteristic for many years: a nation straddling the great cultures of the East and the West, a crossroads, a herald of coexistence, openness, cultural exchange and integration.” However, as the author shows, a series of corrupt leaders over the decades created “a system of governance that was entirely based on clientelistic mafia practices,” which drained the public coffers. The effect of this bankrupt economy is ever present in this urgent diary, which begins just before July 1, 2020. Majdalani writes about how he was considering buying land in the mountains to get his family out of the crowded, pandemic-stricken city. At the time, banks begin refusing withdrawals, the appliances in his Beirut apartment broke down, and the effects of rampant inflation grew alarming. Though the author and his wife still met friends at the few restaurants still hanging on, the number of businesses closing was staggering, as were constant problems involving garbage accumulation and a lack of social services. Then came the explosion, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate abandoned at the city’s port hangar resulted in more than 200 deaths, 7,500 injuries, and billions in damages. “The slow, meticulous sedimentation of time,” writes Majdalani, “was swept away in a few seconds by the blast of a vengeful and incomprehensibly cruel present.” The abrupt ending will leave readers wanting more, but the author gives us an important glimpse of a city that is often ignored in contemporary media.
A sleek, well-rendered work to wake readers up to the plight of the Lebanese people.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63542-178-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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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