Reflections on the life and work of one of America’s preeminent public intellectuals on the occasion of his 90th birthday. Robert B. Reich here describes Galbraith as the “most buoyant dismal scientist of our age.” The description seems apt, for Galbraith has always brought to his intellectual endeavors wit, grace, courage, and humanity. Sasson, a governor of the London School of Economics, has gathered essays by a few of Galbraith’s friends—among them Carlos Fuentes, Derek Bok, Daniel Patrick Moynihan—exploring the style and substance of this remarkable individual. The book’s first part looks at Galbraith the person: father, friend, neighbor, mentor. The second examines his work as an economist. Yet the two parts merge; as we come to see, the person is very much in the work. As an economist, Galbraith has always questioned the “conventional wisdom” (a phrase he coined) of the discipline, has insisted that economics should have something to do with real economies, with real people and the quality of the lives they lead. Eschewing both the belief in the magic of the pure market and the panacea of rigid socialist planning, he has sought ways to make capitalism work, despite itself, while recognizing the vital role government must play to make it work. Above all, he has deplored the imbalance in our society, as Arthur Schlesinger writes, “between the opulence of private consumption and the starvation of public services.” And if there is tragedy in his legacy, it lies in the fact that the few rich no longer care, and the many less affluent no longer can afford to be concerned with the common good. Time may have passed Galbraith by, but that is to time’s detriment. The book fittingly concludes with excerpts from Galbraith’s own works, separately edited by Andrea Williams. This is a loving tribute, and today that makes for a rare and pleasurable reading experience.
Pub Date: May 6, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-97130-6
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© 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
