Nearly 100 passionate, often confrontational essays and editorials from the first 80 years of the New Republic. Selected by former managing editor Wickenden (now national affairs editor at Newsweek), the pieces debate such issues as isolationism, Zionism, abortion, and affirmative action. Among the writers represented are Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, W.H. Auden, and Irving Howe. Originally founded as a ``journal of opinion'' by Walter Lippmann in 1914, the New Republic became identified with American liberalism. Yet a recurrent theme here is the failures of liberalism and the ineptness of liberals, whose lack of pragmatism is repeatedly defined as partly responsible for the horrors of the 20th century. In a 1940 essay, Lewis Mumford states, ``The liberal lacks confidence in himself and in his vision of life.'' Diverging from the Left's often fashionable pastime of Israel-bashing, the magazine has embraced the Zionist cause- -particularly since 1974, when Martin Peretz became editor. Though vaguely critical of the Israelis on occasion, it has depicted the PLO as almost diabolical. In his strong defense of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Peretz writes, ``Confiscations, harassments, young people forced into the militias, schools closed, rapes, molestations...this was the stuff of everyday life in the web of the PLO's `state within a state.' '' Other articles included here have proven prophetic. ``Limits of the New Left,'' written by Christopher Jencks in 1967, foresees a right-wing revival because of the New Left's lack of discipline and inability to organize itself. English teacher Janet Sideman's ``Death of a Dropout,'' also published in 1967, offers a glimpse into American classrooms that value conformity at the price of creativity and remain irrelevant to many of their students' lives. A valuable chronicle of the 20th century's most crucial debates, culled from the pages of one of our most influential periodicals.
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 1994
ISBN: 0-465-09822-3
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
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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