While repetitive in places, this work delivers a heartfelt attack on an often overlooked topic.
A writer examines the horrors of male circumcision.
Debut author Jackson explains early on in his autobiographical book that he has quite a few issues with circumcision, including the seemingly standard practice of performing the procedure on male infants in the United States. One of his main arguments is that in the modern-day world, circumcision serves no real purpose and amounts to “sexual mutilation.” And if one truly wants to be circumcised, why not let that individual make the decision as a consenting adult rather than a defenseless child? The volume tells not so much the story of circumcision in general (though a later chapter addresses the work of an early 20th-century advocate named Dr. Peter Charles Remondino) as the author’s personal tale. And it is a story fraught with family trauma, angry urologists, and painful cosmetic surgery. The author details his own apathetic attitude toward religion as well as the struggles he and his husband have faced in a world that has often been unkind to their status as a gay married couple. To say that Jackson’s words are raw would be an understatement. Readers who feel squeamish at the thought of someone’s intricate “taping” routine to try to overcome his circumcision are unlikely to get far in the book. The author’s anger is palpable, though his hostility can become monotonous. His lengthy attack on Remondino (“If circumcision cures all mental illness, then Dr. Remondino’s own cropped penis should have rendered him less of a moron”) could have been summed up more succinctly. Yet Jackson’s honesty provides a new way of looking at a practice that is rarely discussed. In the end, this intriguing subject is not only brought to light, but also done so in an impassioned way.
While repetitive in places, this work delivers a heartfelt attack on an often overlooked topic. (notes)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73455-580-6
Page Count: 372
Publisher: Hookona Books
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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
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