A well-researched overview of the struggle for abortion rights in America.
A journalist surveys the history of the abortion rights movement.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, 12 states now have total bans on abortion, leaving more than 23 million women of childbearing age without reproductive freedom. With this book, McDevitt seeks to “provide the next generation of feminists with a primer on reproductive rights history.” While mostly focused on sociopolitical movements in the United States, the volume opens with a brief history of abortion that emphasizes its ubiquity across ancient civilizations, from China to Egypt, as well as the varied Christian responses across two centuries. (The Catholic Church’s anti-abortion position was not finalized as a doctrine until the 1830s.) The author pays particular attention to the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Progressive Era activism of Margaret Sanger in the early 1900s up through the Dobbs case. Discussing the 1960s and ’70s, McDevitt highlights the ways in which both Republican and Democratic politicians have dodged the issue, carefully avoiding alienating coveted Catholic voters while similarly navigating the demands of pro-choice activists. After 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. saw a dramatic partisan divide on the issue, and the author describes how Republicans chipped away at Roe through measures like the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. While national politics guide the book’s chronological flow, what stands out is the author’s ability to connect top-down history with smaller-scale stories that make this history both sweeping and deeply personal in scope. Readers learn of 1940s-era underground abortion clinics and of the tragic stories of women like Porsha Ngumezi, a Texan who died in 2023 after being denied a life-saving D&C procedure following a miscarriage. Though McDevitt doesn’t shy away from expressing staunch opposition to the anti-abortion movement, this is no mere polemic; the work is grounded in scholarly research, and the text includes interviews with dozens of activists, including Patricia Ireland and Gloria Feldt.
A well-researched overview of the struggle for abortion rights in America.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9798994112625
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.
The veteran newscaster reflects on her triumphs and hardships, both professional and private.
In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Couric (b. 1957) transforms the events of her long, illustrious career into an immensely readable story—a legacy-preserving exercise, for sure, yet judiciously polished and insightful, several notches above the fray of typical celebrity memoirs. The narrative unfolds through a series of lean chapters as she recounts the many career ascendency steps that led to her massively successful run on the Today Show and comparably disappointing stints as CBS Evening News anchor, talk show host, and Yahoo’s Global News Anchor. On the personal front, the author is candid in her recollections about her midlife adventures in the dating scene and deeply sorrowful and affecting regarding the experience of losing her husband to colon cancer as well as the deaths of other beloved family members, including her sister and parents. Throughout, Couric maintains a sharp yet cool-headed perspective on the broadcast news industry and its many outsized personalities and even how her celebrated role has diminished in recent years. “It’s AN ADJUSTMENT when the white-hot spotlight moves on,” she writes. “The ego gratification of being the It girl is intoxicating (toxic being the root of the word). When that starts to fade, it takes some getting used to—at least it did for me.” Readers who can recall when network news coverage and morning shows were not only relevant, but powerfully influential forces will be particularly drawn to Couric’s insights as she tracks how the media has evolved over recent decades and reflects on the negative effects of the increasing shift away from reliable sources of informed news coverage. The author also discusses recent important cultural and social revolutions, casting light on issues of race and sexual orientation, sexism, and the predatory behavior that led to the #MeToo movement. In that vein, she expresses her disillusionment with former co-host and friend Matt Lauer.
A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53586-1
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
SEEN & HEARD
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