In essays that challenge the nature of racial discourse in America, the director of Princeton's Afro-American Studies program, professor of religion, and self-described ``intellectual freedom- fighter'' calls for moral regeneration and profound social change. Scheduled to appear on the anniversary of the L.A. riots (when the nation presumably will take stock of America one year after), this collection (much of which appeared previously in The New York Times Magazine, Dissent, Z, etc.) is consistently effective at pointing out how the intellectual frameworks used by both whites and blacks as well as by liberals and (neo)conservatives impede true progress and understanding—whether the issue is affirmative action, black nihilism, or the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. West identifies the valuable insights of black conservatives while taking their conclusions to pieces and sees black anti-Semitism as threatening the ethical nature of the black struggle (if it ``becomes simply a power-driven war...that pits xenophobia from below against racism from above, then David Duke's project is the wave of the future''). While unsparing in his critique of black leadership and American racism, West situates the crisis in black America inside our market-driven culture, a world of ``random nows'' and the ``empty quest for pleasure, property and power''—a pervasive spiritual impoverishment that transcends race but is most devastating among the poorest, most powerless, and most despised. Aiming at accessibility, West perhaps too much curtails his customary intellectual range; but with clear thinking and sensible analysis being in short supply these days, his words are welcome nonetheless.
Pub Date: April 29, 1993
ISBN: 0-8070-0918-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the...
Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds, 2016, etc.) turns timely political reporting he published in Vanity Fair into a book about federal government bureaucracies during the first year of the Donald Trump presidency.
At first, the author’s curiosity about the relationship between individual citizens and massive federal agencies supported by taxpayer dollars did not lead him to believe the book would become a searing indictment of Trump. However, Lewis wisely allowed the evidence to dictate the narrative, resulting in a book-length indictment of Trump’s disastrous administration. The leading charge of the indictment is what Lewis terms “willful ignorance.” Neither Trump nor his appointees to head government agencies have demonstrated even the slightest curiosity about how those agencies actually function. After Trump’s election in November 2016, nobody from his soon-to-be-inaugurated administration visited federal agencies despite thorough preparation within those agencies to assist in a traditionally nonpartisan transition. Lewis primarily focuses on the Energy Department, the Agriculture Department, and the Commerce Department. To provide context, he contrasts the competent transition teams assembled after the previous elections of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Displaying his usual meticulous research and fluid prose, the author makes the federal bureaucracy come alive by focusing on a few individuals within each agency with fascinating—and sometimes heartwarming—backstories. In addition, Lewis explains why each of those individuals is important to the citizenry due to their sometimes-arcane but always crucial roles within the government. Throughout the book, unforgettable tidbits emerge, such as the disclosure by a Forbes magazine compiler of the world’s wealthiest individuals list that only three tycoons have intentionally misled the list’s compilers—one of the three is Trump, and another is Wilbur Ross, appointed by Trump as Commerce Secretary.
As with nearly all of Lewis’ books, this one succeeds on so many levels, including as a well-written primer on how the government serves citizens in underappreciated ways.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-324-00264-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
James Baldwin has come a long way since the days of Notes of a Native Son, when, in 1955, he wrote: "I love America more than any other country in the world; and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." Such bittersweet affairs are bound to turn sour. The first curdling came with The Fire Next Time, a moving memoir, yet shot through with rage and prophetic denunciations. It made Baldwin famous, indeed a celebrity, but it did little, in retrospect, to further his artistic reputation. Increasingly, it seems, he found it impossible to reconcile his private and public roles, his creative integrity and his position as spokesman for his race. Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, for example, his last novel, proved to be little more than a propagandistic potboiler. Nor, alas, are things very much better in No Name In the Street, a brief, rather touchy and self-regarding survey of the awful events of the '60's — the deaths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, the difficulties of the Black Panther Party, the abrasive and confused relationships between liberals and militants. True, Baldwin's old verve and Biblical raciness are once more heard in his voice; true, there are poignant moments and some surprisingly intimate details. But this chronicle of his "painful route back to engagement" never really comes to grips with history or the self. The revelatory impulse is present only in bits and pieces. Mostly one is confronted with psychological and ideological disingenuousness — and vanity as well.
Pub Date: May 26, 1972
ISBN: 0307275922
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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