by Cynthia Enloe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1993
Here, Enloe (Government/Clark University) makes bold but often unsubstantiated assertions about the relationship between sexuality and militarism—as she seeks, not too persuasively, to chart changing post-cold-war sexual politics. For Enloe, a committed feminist, gender is all as she discusses subjects ranging from the working conditions of Filipina servants in Kuwait and the role of women in the Gulf War to government-sanctioned prostitution for the military. In each situation, she says, women have been affected by the way ``in which masculinity provided fodder for earlier militarization.'' To Enloe, gender-definition goes beyond mere prejudice or custom; it's a deliberate product of sociopolitical policy: ``masculinity being remade for the sake of controlling the society at large.'' In her view, both sides in the cold war deliberately used sexuality to meet their goals by providing prostitutes and sexual R&R for their armed forces; by encouraging women to stay home or take low-paying jobs as a form of ``patriotic sacrifice''; and by enacting policies that forced women into ``low-waged'' jobs—by making, for example, ``tourism a partner for regional anti-Communism'' in the Caribbean. With the cold war over, Enloe sees some encouraging signs of a future in which masculinity won't be shaped by militarism: The UN peacekeeping force ``inspires optimism because it seems to perform military duties without being militaristic''; Danish women have organized against the Maastricht treaty; more women are in armed services; and women's movements are growing in Kuwait, the Philippines, and even in Serbia. Rambling and repetitive polemic that could have something important to say but by substituting assertion and anecdote for rigorous analysis, doesn't. (Illustrations—not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-520-08335-0
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993
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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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