A Cook's tour of humankind's great innovations and the glories and tribulations that came in their wake. Burke (The Day the Universe Changed, 1986, etc.) is a master storyteller of the big picture: the origin of Western attitudes and institutions, and how technology shapes destiny, are a couple of his earlier efforts. Here he and psychologist Ornstein (The Roots of the Self, 1993, etc.) chronicle those achievements that allowed humans to make great leaps forward. And they do go back, all the way to the first stone tools of ancient hominids. Some of the axemakers' (people whose inventions shaped our world and our minds) big ``gifts'': the protohorticultural societies, the hydraulic civilizations, the first laws and alphabets, printmaking, the discovery of the New World, medical advances, the Industrial Revolution, the computer age. Each of these gifts causes major ripples in the prevailing institutions, opens new vistas, makes life a little easier (at least for some folks), and the authors do an excellent job outlining the dynamics and tensions they arouse. But each gift also exacts a price, be it rigid hierarchies, slavery, or grotesque environmental degradation; furthermore, in every instance, these gifts have increasingly distanced the axemakers and their governmental masters from the general population. We now find ourselves at a precarious historical juncture, say the authors, with a vulnerable agricultural base, population numbers run amok, a trashed environment, and a citizenry out of touch with how the world works and relying on the axemaker's quick fixes. Their Rx, in miniature: Concentrate on small-scale communities, indigenous knowledge, and participatory democracy; use the computer to gain access to the web of knowledge already available. Hardly original, but Burke and Ornstein are quick to admit it. The beauty of this book lies in the conjuring of those innovative moments, beautifully woven, entertaining vignettes that explain where the changes came from, the trouble they caused, and where they led.
Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14088-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
Political philosopher Elshtain presents a lucid admonition that the frayed bonds of civility are leading to almost unbearable stress on America's democratic experiment. This extended essay was originally broadcast as part of the 1993 Massey Lectures on CBC radio. Elshtain (Ethics/Univ. of Chicago; Women and War, not reviewed) approaches her subject with thoughtful philosophical concern rather than with the technocratic disdain of Patrick Kennon's The Twilight of Democracy (pg TK). She sees gridlock and cynicism as symptoms of an ailing democracy. But she does not locate their source, as many do, in the Constitution's system of checks and balances or in the incestuous relationship that has developed among elected officials, the federal bureaucracy, and the private sector. Rather, she traces these ills to ``a spiral of delegitimation''—the loss of faith in institutions themselves—worsened by a public appetite for scandal and a society made litigious, suspicious, and selfish; she is alarmed by the signs of anomie spreading in America: ``the growth of corrosive forms of isolation, boredom, and despair.'' Where Alexis de Tocqueville found an antebellum America strengthened by a network of private associations, from churches to local groups, Elshtain dreads a contemporary ``politics of displacement'' that threatens to sunder necessary distinctions between public and private spheres. For instance, she fears that proposals aimed at protecting women from violence could corrode the rights of the accused; she also is wary of fostering a psychology of victimization in women themselves. Further stirring this witches' brew are ethnic, racial, and sexual groups that are prepared to end discussion with one another when public validation of their identity is not forthcoming. The result: an end to compromise, the binding element of democratic politics. One caveat regarding this discussion: Elshtain is regrettably short on solutions to our collective dilemma. But seldom have the sources of democracy and its discontents been described with such philosophical passion and insight.
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-465-01616-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Freelance writer Engelhardt offers an eloquent obituary for American triumphalism, which died a slow death in the years between US victory in WW II and the Gulf War. Engelhardt traces the roots of America's national ``war story,'' its public myth of just warfare and inevitable victory against savage and lesser peoples, to the beginnings of European settlement in the New World. He argues that colonial and early American justification of the slaughter of Indians became a paradigm for its national war story through subsequent Indian wars, the Revolution, and the Civil War. During these wars, and in the retelling of them to later generations, Americans justified violence and atrocities by stressing the nobility of America's cause and the inevitable victory of American arms. Engelhardt points to the transformation and decline of this ``victory culture'' in America's Asian wars, beginning with the atomic horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, continuing through stalemate in Korea, and ending in defeat in Vietnam. In recreating the national myths Americans have told themselves, Engelhardt deftly extracts meaning about America's popular and political cultures from fiction, films, and children's toys and comics. As America became mired in Asian wars, the ``war story'' became as tinged with racism as it had been during the Indian wars. Later, the narrative tapped into fears of nuclear disaster and anti-Communist paranoia. During the Vietnam War, the national myth languished and finally perished as the US military became trapped in a war the public couldn't understand and ultimately loathed. Finally, the author discusses the failure of attempts to revive the national war myth, from actions in Grenada and Panama, through the hollow, strangely untriumphant ``total television'' of the Gulf War. A poignant, insightful work that examines how Americans have viewed their country in the past, and that leaves open the question of how America will define itself without an enemy in the postCold War future.
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-465-01984-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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