An enticing look at government reformation that manages to bring something new to the table.
This nonfiction book offers an exploration of a simplified American mode of government.
Wade and Herel invite readers to consider a reformed government they call “American Laborism.” American Laborism aims to forge a federal government that abolishes much of the bloat of the current system. While cuts are made, the model is not to be confused with libertarianism. American Laborism puts an emphasis on educating citizens in order to increase the value of their hard work. To start with, the federal government will be reduced to just three parts: the “Military Department,” the “Advancement Department” (sort of like the Department of Education), and the post office. While the roles of the Military Department and the post office are obvious, the Advancement Department would provide all Americans “unlimited, free, and lifelong education.” The beneficiaries include “people who have massive student loans, people who want to work for themselves, people who want to advance their education and then get a great job, and even people who want to stay in school forever.” The funding for this ambitious program would not come from a tax hike but in exchange for work. At a minimum, those seeking educational advancement would participate in one day of unpaid labor a week. The federal government would not be giving out money but rather opportunities. Many of these details are hammered out in portions of the volume where the authors engage in a dialogue with each other. In the world of books about how to fix America, readers will find it refreshing to come across something novel. Rather than clinging to far left or far right concepts, American Laborism creates something different. A system that aims to both lower taxes and create affordable education is one that certainly helps to bridge political divides. While this system provides much to contemplate, the presentation can at times get bogged down in finer points while neglecting larger issues. For instance, a discussion of what to do with excess federal employees after American Laborism is implemented may be relevant, but not much attention is given to what happens after beloved federal programs like the National Park Service cease to exist. Nevertheless, the concepts are well thought out and will spur further discussion.
An enticing look at government reformation that manages to bring something new to the table.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781637632369
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Forefront Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
