An intriguing account of a New England rush to judgment in the Jacksonian Era. The murder of textile manufacturer Amasa Sprague on New Year's Eve 1843 in Spragueville, Rhode Island, launched an enthusiastic but careless manhunt led by the victim's brother William (US senator from Rhode Island) and carried out by longtime residents of town. Within 24 hours, even though no physical evidence was found to tie them to the crime, three Irish brothers were arrested. The theory was that Nicholas Gordon, furious over Amasa Sprague's opposition to his renewal of a liquor license, had retaliated by enlisting brothers John and William in a murder conspiracy. The Hoffmanns (both English/University of Rhode Island) carefully explain the political tensions that colored the case (Yankee farmers in remote rural areas felt threatened by Irish immigrants, as well as by reformers who sought to change the state's constitution in order to institute universal adult white-male suffrage). The prosecution charged that John and William Gordon had killed at their brother's request because ``the tie of kindred is to an Irishman almost an indissoluble bond,'' while the judge urged jurors to weigh the character of prosecution witnesses versus that of Irish defense witnesses. Nevertheless, the evidence against the brothers was so weak that one was acquitted, a second was freed after two hung juries, and the third was convicted in what came to be seen as a miscarriage of justice. John Gordon's execution—the last in the state—caused so much guilt that seven years later it contributed to Rhode Island's abolition of capital punishment. The conclusion here—that William Sprague had conspired to kill his senior business partner, the overly cautious Amasa—is supported only by speculation about motive and opportunity, but the authors have little doubt that William helped engineer the death of an innocent man. Well-researched local history on a still timely issue: the effect of class and ethnicity on criminal justice. (Seven b&w illustrations)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-87023-852-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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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
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“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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