A cleareyed, accessible, and informative primer: vital reading for all Americans.
A legal scholar advises presidents to read the Constitution with great care.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Brettschneider (Political Science/Brown Univ.; Civil Rights and Liberties: Cases and Readings in Constitutional Law and American Democracy, 2013, etc.) was shocked that “proposals to violate the Constitution that had been the stuff of far-fetched classroom hypotheticals” were part of Donald Trump’s agenda. The author responded in articles for Politico, Time.com, and the New York Times, which became the basis for this pointed, cogent, and authoritative analysis of presidential policy and power. Addressing future presidents (and certainly the current office holder) and all citizens, Brettschneider parses the text of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, offers historical background to illuminate the reasons for and controversy over provisions, identifies salient exemplary cases, and concludes with recommendations for any president. He distinguishes between an originalist position, which reads the documents “according to the historical meaning of the words at the time of their passage,” and a “value-based reading,” which asks, “what is our best understanding of the moral principles of the Constitution enshrined in its text and in our case law?” Clearly, the author advocates a value-based reading, since originalists sometimes fail to investigate the history underlying certain provisions. Focusing on a question that arose during the George W. Bush administration regarding the use of “enhanced interrogation,” Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the ban on cruel and unusual punishment did not apply, since extracting information is not technically punishment. Brettschneider argues, however, that the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as stipulated in the Bill of Rights, was imported from the British Bill of Rights to end “the arbitrary and cruel abuses—especially torture—committed by kings and queens against their subjects.” The author offers a clear explanation of many complex issues, such as the provisions of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law; and the process involved in impeachment, including the question of whether obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense.
A cleareyed, accessible, and informative primer: vital reading for all Americans.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-393-65212-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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