A wide-ranging, occasionally overwhelming book that condemns failed institutions and challenges us to make needed change.
An overview of the causes of our mistrust in the institutions we once held sacred.
In this study of how to rebuild faith in society and each other and enter into a new compact with our fellow citizens, Zuckerman, former director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media, examines the struggle between institutionalists (those who believe we can reform existing structures) and insurrectionists (those seeking to tear it down and start anew). As organizations grow old, they inevitably fall out of touch with those they are meant to serve, resulting in widespread mistrust. All readers will agree that government, industry, and other trusted bodies have failed us in one way or another, and the author provides them with ample statistical data to prove it. How best to rebuild that trust—from within or without? It would be too easy for Zuckerman to criticize skeptics and insurrectionists as cranks or lunatics. Instead, the author provides solid examples of the many insurrectionists who have upended industries, including Uber, Tesla, and Airbnb. The founders of these companies identified needs missing in the market and leveraged this absence into transformative new businesses. Of course, there are downsides, which the author shrewdly considers. Uber, for example, has wreaked havoc on the taxi industry, forcing many drivers out of the business altogether. In the political arena, authoritarian power is always a lurking danger. Zuckerman discusses how the Sicilian Mafia rose to power as an insurrectionist response to inadequate governmental structures. Similarly, elected officials such as Donald Trump present themselves as populist insurrectionists, but they often bring with them dangerous strongman tactics. “Mistrust,” writes the author, “is the single, critical factor” that led to his election. Throughout, the author uses concrete examples to illustrate his points—sometimes too many examples. The narrative could have benefitted from a deeper focus on fewer topics.
A wide-ranging, occasionally overwhelming book that condemns failed institutions and challenges us to make needed change.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-324-00260-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
