An inspired, intensively focused examination of issues of and solutions about extremist ideology, sure to inspire spirited...
A new approach to countering global extremism.
From 2009 to 2014, Pandith, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, visited 80 countries as the first U.S. special representative to Muslim communities to investigate radicalization and millennial extremism, an issue she considers “both a generational and a connected global problem.” The author’s efforts to establish deeper connections in Muslim communities resulted in the formation of the Countering Violent Extremism grassroots movement, although it would come with its own set of challenges, which the author describes in detail. Pandith, who has served under three presidential administrations, believes a global identity crisis in younger Muslim generations is largely responsible for the current potent extremist threat. This has occurred through the manipulations of cultural, ideological, and economic elements, combined with negative Saudi influences. In her years of outreach work, Pandith sought to empower Muslim youth to resist the trend of replacing traditional culture with extremist teachings. She criticizes the U.S. government for its multipronged attack that engages too many different departments and agencies, all of which consistently fail to sync. She blames senior government officials, who lack relevant real-world knowledge of Muslim history or credible experience with grassroots programs, for failing to truly connect with the core issue of radicalization. With great passion and commitment, Pandith, a perceptive observer and strategic thinker, argues that the fight must encompass elements of government, business, private sector organizations, and local communities and philanthropists, all working together with like-minded individuals to stem the extremist tide. Comprehensive and expansive in scope, the narrative is unquestionably dense, which may push away some readers. However, she effectively outlines how the war against the extremist threat is being countered by diligent, structured efforts to intercept vulnerable young minds. She remains cautiously optimistic that her collaborative, “open power,” entrepreneurial, leadership-sharing approach could make a world of difference, with or without the current administration’s advocacy.
An inspired, intensively focused examination of issues of and solutions about extremist ideology, sure to inspire spirited debate.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-247115-4
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Custom House/Morrow
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2019
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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