Just in time for the millennium, elder statesman Dyson (Physics/Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; From Eros to Gaia, 1992, etc.) sounds off on three technological revolutions that could radically transform human social arrangements—if we play our cards right. A big “if,” since some people may not like the cards, and Dyson’s ideas are still on the drawing boards. As the title suggests, one of his visions involves harnessing solar energy. Dyson’s proposal is to breed plants that will convert radiant energy into liquid fuel, which could feed directly into local pipelines. On the human genome, Dyson has no doubt that its data will be used, initially by the rich, for “reprogenetics”—tailoring the genes of the unborn to confer whatever traits parents deem advantageous. (Cloning is a minor issue by comparison, Dyson believes.) Eventually, such gene tinkering could lead to speciation, dividing not just rich and poor but social groups according to lifestyle or philosophical beliefs. To avoid the inevitable intergroup hostilities, we will seek what Dyson calls “the high road” to space (he believes that, by the end of the 21st century, space travel will have become far more practical). The Internet, not confined (as it is today) to the computer-literate, but as a universal source of knowledge and communication, reaching rural villager and city slicker alike, is another of Dyson’s dreams for the future. Dyson argues that the technologies can be used to advance social justice and lessen economic disparities (though he never explains how reprogenetics jibes with that ideal). Dyson admits he was wrong about (the latter) two of the three technologies he had hopes for back in the 1980s: genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and space travel, so one may take his current scenarios not as prophecies but as one man’s hopes. Adding to the book’s value, however, are Dyson’s authoritative commentaries on how past technologies have changed society and, as always, his exemplary prose style.
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-19-512942-3
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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