by Jedediah Purdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 30, 2022
A thoughtful consideration of issues in sore need of solution by democratic means.
A nuanced prescription for a politics remade in the wake of the Trump era.
“Our lives depend on the choices we make and those we are unable to make,” writes Columbia Law School professor Purdy, who opens with a thought experiment that imagines four textbooks published in 2050. One tells the story of a triumphant authoritarianism, another of political fragmentation, yet another the surrender of functions of civic life to a technocracy. “These three futures are already with us,” he notes, while the fourth and most desirable has yet to take shape: a movement of citizens who took charge of their own lives and made a history that addressed flaws in government, economic inequality, the climate change crisis, and other existential issues. Even though many of us claim that we are sick of politics, we all make demands of it: the left for reforms in policing and a stronger commitment to civil rights, for instance, and the right for nationalist trade policies and an end to immigration. A healthy body politic, writes the author, will recognize the plural, diverse nature of American society and the fact that “majority rule is not a license for the majority to do whatever it wants with everyone else.” He goes on to examine various theories of democracy and its discontents, from Alexis de Tocqueville to Samuel Huntington, the conservative theorist whose “clash of civilizations” thesis was predated by his view that democracies in action often undermine the premises of democracy itself, proven by a “minority-rule president who led a minority-rule party”—i.e., Donald Trump and the GOP. Purdy argues convincingly that reforms must address issues such as economic and social inequality, predatory capitalism, and “systems of relentless, hierarchical pressure.” The alternative is to lose democracy, he warns, which is to surrender any decision-making authority over our own lives.
A thoughtful consideration of issues in sore need of solution by democratic means.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-541-67302-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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by Alok Vaid-Menon ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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by Shavone Charles ; illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
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by Walter Isaacson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2023
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
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New York Times Bestseller
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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