A thoughtful work that convincingly argues political civility begins at the interpersonal level.
A trio of authors from across the political spectrum make the case for a return to civility.
Based on their politics, one would assume authors Teschner, Malow, and Robinson exist in an adversarial dynamic. Having served six terms as a state representative and as the assistant secretary of state in New Hampshire, Teschner has long been a staple of the Granite State’s Republican establishment. Malow hails from a solidly liberal Jewish family from Long Island and has remained a Democrat throughout her own career as a neurologist in Nashville. An Army brat who campaigned for George H.W. Bush as a high school student, Robinson was raised in a staunchly conservative, evangelical household, but became politically adrift after the rise of Donald Trump. Despite their varied backgrounds, which span not only partisan loyalties but also geographic regions and generational divides, the authors are united in their belief that Americans “need to find a way to turn the politics of fear and contempt into the politics of hope.” Political animosity, per the authors, has a corrosive effect on policies that impact every American, contributing to the deterioration of families, personal relationships, and mental and physical health. While the authors discuss ways that “the exhausted majority” can restore democratic norms on the grassroots level, their central argument emphasizes the importance of embodying bipartisan civility in daily life. The book is written in an engaging style that balances the ideological diversity of its authors. It is as much a self-help book as it is a nuanced commentary on American politics, as it offers pragmatic advice on how to debate without resorting to ad hominem attacks, how to embody the values of kindness and respect, and how to engage with family, friends, and colleagues who have different perspectives. This is “not about kumbaya and compromise,” the authors note, but about how “embracing personal change” is an important first step in building a culture of respect. The text is accompanied by a wealth of photographs, illustrations, and other visual elements.
A thoughtful work that convincingly argues political civility begins at the interpersonal level.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798999063205
Page Count: 302
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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