An impressively sober and fair-minded analysis.
A comprehensive center-left political platform that addresses the worsening problem of economic inequality.
Inequality is perennially a hot topic, but debates about it reached a fever pitch during the recent election season. Debut author and economist Anthony argues that inequality could potentially lead to electoral gains for a center-left political coalition, but a steady loss of constituent support has resulted instead. In this book, the author articulates a remarkably comprehensive program that includes a series of economic remedies and a campaign strategy. He begins with a brief synopsis of modern economic theory, featuring paragraph-length summaries of the work of such economic thinkers as Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. Then he explains the sources of inequality, noting that the Ronald Reagan/Margaret Thatcher revolution ushered in lowered tax rates, diminished welfare spending, resulted in wide-scale deregulation and privatization, and unleashed the forces of globalization. His recommendations are ambitiously thorough, covering everything from fiscal policy to food distribution. Problematically, this comprehensiveness results in a lack of rigorously considered detail; as the title suggests, this is a manifesto, not an academic white paper. Anthony could have cut a section that breezily covers philosophical arguments against inequality, which is both gratuitous and too intellectually slight to convince detractors. Also, the book acknowledges but insufficiently discusses some central economic problems; for instance, Anthony concedes that the concept of a living wage is vague, but he also recommends its institution without providing much guidance on the proper amount. Finally, some proposals are too controversial for just a few sentences of clarification; for example, the author suggests that media proprietors could be “directly targeted” and essentially threatened for more favorable coverage, and the efficacy, as well as the legitimacy, of such an aggressive approach is far from obvious. Still, this is an admirably nonpartisan account of the problem of inequality, especially given that its entire economic program is couched in a political platform. It should be edifying not only for readers who share Anthony’s politics, but also for those who are reflexively opposed to them.
An impressively sober and fair-minded analysis.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2016
ISBN: 9781483455099
Page Count: 249
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.
Largely autobiographical meditations and wanderings through landscapes external and internal.
National Book Critics Circle Award–winner Solnit (River of Shadows: Edward Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, 2003, etc.) roams through a large territory here. The book cries out for an explanatory subtitle: “field guide” shouldn’t be taken as a literal description of these eclectic memories, keen observations and provocative musings. Four of Solnit’s essays have the same title, “The Blue of Distance,” but the first segues from the blue in Renaissance paintings to a turquoise blouse the author wore as a child, then to the blue of distance seen on a walk across the drought-shrunken Great Salt Lake. The second presents Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer who wandered for years in the Americas, and then several white children taken captive by Indians; their stories demonstrate that a person can cease to be lost not only by returning, but also by turning into someone else. The third blue essay explores the world of country and western music, full of tales of loss and longing. The fourth introduces the eccentric artist Yves Klein, who patented the formula for his special electric blue paint and claimed to be launching a new Blue Age. How does it all fit in? Don’t ask, just enjoy, for Solnit is a captivating writer. Woven in and out of these four pieces and the five others that alternate with them are Solnit’s immigrant ancestors, lost friends, former lovers, favorite old movies, her own dreams, the house she grew up in, harsh deserts, animals on the edge of extinction and abandoned buildings. All become material for the author’s explorations of loss, losing and being lost.
Elegant essays marked by surprising shifts and unexpected connections.Pub Date: July 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-03421-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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