A wonderful showcase of the work of an invaluable 20th-century journalist.
A distinguished journalist offers a selection of her published work over 50 years chronicling the Black experience.
Growing up in Covington, Georgia, Hunter-Gault (b. 1942) dreamed of becoming a journalist like comic-strip reporter Brenda Starr. It was a seemingly impossible dream in the segregated and racist Deep South, but the author was diligent in her quest for knowledge. In 1961, she and Hamilton Holmes became the first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia, and she graduated in two years. From the mid-1960s onward, she worked for an impressive array of publications and networks, including the Atlanta Inquirer, the New Yorker, the New York Times, NBC, CNN, and PBS NewsHour. In this thematic collection, the author comments insightfully on the decadeslong social developments and unrest in the lives of Black people in both the U.S. and South Africa. The earliest pieces look at the teachings of the Black Panthers, John Lewis’ work registering Black voters, early Black urban development projects in law enforcement and education, and the widening Black-White income gap. In the second part, Hunter-Gault presents pieces about “My Sisters,” including profiles of NAACP leader Margaret Bush Wilson, poet Phillis Wheatley, and Shirley Chisholm, “the first black woman member of the House of Representatives.” Having spent nearly 20 years living in South Africa, Hunter-Gault also offers a unique perspective on the post-apartheid era; her 2010 New Yorker piece “The Third Man,” about President Jacob Zumba, is a nuanced portrait of a troubled country and its leaders. The section titled “A Road Less Traveled” serves as an illuminating portrait of the author’s upbringing and early influences, while somber commemorations in “Honoring the Ancestors” include salutes to Malcom X, Langston Hughes, Julian Bond, and Nelson Mandela. Despite chronicling periods of enormous pain and despair, Hunter-Gault ends with an upbeat, hopeful interview with David Brooks about working for “common action” since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement.
A wonderful showcase of the work of an invaluable 20th-century journalist.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313539-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
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
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
