by Claude Lévi-Strauss translated by Jane Marie Todd ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2016
Though representing a tradition that is now considered old-fashioned, Lévi-Strauss was quite the revolutionary in his day....
Previously ungathered pieces by the eminent French anthropologist, all addressing in some way the vexing question of relativism.
That question, as Lévi-Strauss (The Other Face of the Moon, 2013, etc.) formulated it, goes something like this: the job of the Enlightenment, out of which anthropology grows, is to devise the rules that describe a rational society of the sort that all societies should wish to become. At the same time, relativism “rejects any absolute criterion by which a culture could allow itself to judge different cultures.” Thus, there’s no such thing as an advanced versus a primitive society; thus, as the title suggests, we feast on one another’s flesh even though we’re not supposed to. Relativism does not keep us from contesting matters on cultural grounds, of course: Lévi-Strauss opens with an episode from the war on Christmas, namely a revolt 65-odd years ago in which the good citizens of Dijon, France, hanged the foreign character of Santa Claus from a rafter in the city cathedral. Though the pieces in this collection were published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, that doesn’t keep Lévi-Strauss from entering into difficult thickets of thought. With ever an eye on the binary oppositions of structuralism, he notes that the Christmas incident illustrates the functions of society along “a dual rhythm of increased solidarity and exacerbated antagonism.” So much the better if that dual rhythm can be put to work pounding the other, though in the absence of the foreign, homegrown scapegoats will do. Sometimes clearly, sometimes behind layers of technical language, Lévi-Strauss ponders big questions: what does it mean to be “civilized”? What are the “modalities of cannibalism,” and why should we care? Presciently, he observes that even though we supposedly live in a global civilization, that does nothing at all to prevent those cultural collisions—and indeed, it “makes the clash between external differences sharper.”
Though representing a tradition that is now considered old-fashioned, Lévi-Strauss was quite the revolutionary in his day. These varied, smart pieces show why.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-17068-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
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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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“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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