A book for foreign-policy wonks to debate and cherish.
Which presidents of recent times have been most successful in international affairs?
Chollet, executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund, suggests that three recent presidents exhibited a sensible approach to foreign policy: Dwight Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama (the author served in multiple senior positions with the Obama administration). “These three leaders,” writes the author, “demonstrated how the United States can exercise prudent and powerful leadership in the world and stand as pillars of decency, humility, and strength.” Each of them represented a fundamentally conservative approach. None was quick to reach for military solutions, but none shied from them, either, and all three focused on keeping a balance between foreign and domestic commitments. Chollet’s book, while not belaboring the point, stands as a rebuke to Trump’s handling of allies and enemies alike. In the place of his wild inconsistencies and angry bluster, Eisenhower, Bush, and Obama exhibited a keen awareness that what Eisenhower called “the Middle Way” was the place where progress might be slow but the real battles were to be fought, and all three sought to rein in the “arrogance of power” that so characterizes the current president. Chollet notes that although Obama has been scourged as a radical leftist, his policies, particularly foreign policy, were framed in terms that Eisenhower and Bush would have endorsed. The author tests his thesis on six crises, two apiece, that the three presidents faced and met with that middle-way policy, including Obama’s dealings with the Assad regime in Syria: “While Obama wanted to get rid of Assad, he did not want the United States to be on the hook to do it.” Obama further opposed the war in Iraq but wanted to focus closely on fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. Bush denounced “America First”–ism. Chollet’s thesis is too often stated and restated, but his conclusions are worth holding in mind as one evaluates presidential performance.
A book for foreign-policy wonks to debate and cherish.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-19-009288-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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