Engaging, multifaceted discussions of a perennial economic issue.
A wide-ranging exploration of the origins of inequality.
Although economic disparity is a major source of debate in contemporary political discourse, philosophical investigations into its principal causes have gone on for centuries. Debut author Longaker examines the issue by starting with a focused question: why did some nations spectacularly capitalize on the economic opportunities generated by the Industrial Revolution, while others missed the boat? The author’s response heavily applies principles of Darwinian evolution. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, he says, the world’s rate of population growth was largely stagnant; later, economically affluent people reproduced at a more impressive rate than their poorer counterparts, more of their offspring survived, and the traits that supported their superior success proved heritable, Longaker asserts. But after a process that took approximately 1,000 years, the difference between the global rich and poor has solidified, he says, and the power of Darwinian evolution has waned: “Darwinian fitness, at least as we have used it, no longer operates nearly as intensely as before.” The author’s study is stunningly broad, traversing an extraordinary swath of intellectual territory, including ideas from economics, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology, just to name a few. He shows a refreshing penchant for challenging regnant academic pieties; he presents powerful reasons to be suspicious of the doctrine of “psychic unity,” for example. Although the book doesn’t appear to have any discriminatory or prejudicial motivations, the author offers a thoughtful, lively response to potential accusations of racism, which he calls “wrongheaded.” Additionally, Longaker provides a searching analysis of the stubborn problem of poverty, astutely distinguishing between urban and rural manifestations. The book’s survey of the relevant literature is also instructive; the author helpfully contrasts his own work with Guns, Germs, and Steel author Jared Diamond’s geographical determinism, for instance. But although the prose is consistently accessible, this is still a long and sometimes-long-winded analysis that’s heavy on statistical minutiae, and some of the more data-laden sections may prove exhausting. However, the author’s meticulousness and spirited iconoclasm repays careful attention.
Engaging, multifaceted discussions of a perennial economic issue.Pub Date: March 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9979617-0-6
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Napoleon Avenue
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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