An energetic populist manifesto that scores hits on a wide range of targets.
This free-wheeling polemic argues it’s time for Australians to stand up to a corrupt establishment.
Stewart begins by saluting the iconically plucky Australian populace—among them, pre-colonial aborigines, who lived a “culturally rich, refined and satisfying life”; later mavericks, from Robin Hood-like outlaw Ned Kelly to brassy feminist Germaine Greer; and the current crop of ordinary farmers, miners, small businesspeople, and innovators. Keeping this last group down, the author contends, is a rogue’s gallery of pernicious institutions. Pride of place goes to government bureaucrats—Stewart likens them to parasitic aphids. He also attacks the finance industry (“You puffed up, fat lazy arrogant bankers, you should not be proud of stealing the savings of trusting little old ladies”); schools that “force children to…grovel before the power of the state” until they become “frightened little snowflakes”; the “pustule of politicians” in Parliament; “young, green zealots” and their “loony, lazy, Lefty lamentations”; and British aristocrats, whom he calls “deeply flawed and depraved dipsticks” who perpetrated a “genocide” on Australian soldiers by roping them into the world wars. The author’s argument leans right—he’s intensely skeptical of illegal immigration and big government—but he takes on concentrated economic power as well. Stewart lays out a vision of a society that’s autonomous and adaptable, structured not around centralized institutions but families and villages. He offers a raft of policy proposals, some wistful (banning lawyers from Parliament because they have a vested interest in passing complicated laws that provoke suits) and others more serious (the author suggests having companies run by German-style councils with worker representation). Stewart’s punchy prose revels in aggressive alliteration, but he also provides a thoughtful, probing social critique. (“Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work.”) The result is a provocative challenge to Australia’s entrenched interests.
An energetic populist manifesto that scores hits on a wide range of targets.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2021
ISBN: 9798782307653
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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