A barely serviceable briefing on the incumbent chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Drawing on somewhat limited access to his subject, friends, foes, family members, the public record, and secondary sources, Means (a senior editor at Washingtonian magazine) offers few details on Powell's personal life or character, focusing instead on the facts of his military career. Born in Harlem to industrious Jamaican immigrants, the future general graduated in 1958 from CCNY, where his main interest seems to have been ROTC, and immediately joined the Army as a second lieutenant. His race notwithstanding, superiors soon tabbed Powell as a comer to be set on the fast upward track. The young officer did not disappoint his sponsors, serving two tours of duty in Vietnam, winning a White House Fellowship, doing brilliant staff work, performing well in professional studies, and otherwise distinguishing himself. Appointed an aide to Caspar Weinberger, then secretary of defense, early in the Reagan Administration, Powell moved on to the National Security Council. President Bush jumped him over 30 senior colleagues to head the JCS, where he has played leading roles in the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, and allied enterprises. While Means concedes that Powell has attained his high-profile, upper-echelon estate on merit, he makes much of his subject's mentors (notably, Frank Carlucci) and West Indian (as opposed to African-American) heritage. The author is also at pains to cite critics who fault Powell for a paucity of troop commands, and he goes out of his way to raise doubts about Powell's involvement in the Iran-contra scandal. But despite leaving the impression that he views the public man as too good to be true, Means closes with a series of extravagant speculations on Powell's out-of-uniform future in elective office or the private sector. The nation's first soldier deserves and eventually will get a better Boswell. (The labored text has photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1992
ISBN: 1-55611-335-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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