A thoughtful call for equality of economic opportunity, both provocative and, in the end, eminently practical.
An exposé of the many barriers marginalized people face in gaining access to the so-called American dream.
“We claim that we live in a land of opportunity, when in fact we have systematically denied opportunity for centuries,” writes Fuhrer, a foundation fellow at the Eastern Bank Foundation. The myth of the title is less a single yarn than the tangled mass of threads that comprise systemic racism in economic life—though if it were to be reduced to a single falsehood, it’s that each of us has the same opportunities to work and grow rich. It should be no surprise that the playing field is anything but level and that “the array of policies that were designed to build wealth for white families” is largely unavailable to anyone else. For individuals, the inequalities begin in childhood, with a huge differential in the accessibility of pediatric health care and educational and social support systems for early childhood development to minority and white populations. One of many hurdles, writes Fuhrer, is that the years of early childhood care tend to be the years of lowest earning, which means that the ability to borrow funds is constricted and the need for assistance greatest. A free-marketer fundamentalist may be shocked by Fuhrer’s program of remedies. Apart from increasing access to day care programs, for example, he recommends installing “school-to-work educational programs” that would serve as pipelines by which individuals with the necessary skills are steered from community college or trade school to jobs, with the costs borne by taxpayers and industry alike. He also recommends raising the minimum wage and, to make that possible, giving large tax breaks to the small businesses that might otherwise be harmed by the cost burden. Following Fuhrer’s tally sheet will surely make a libertarian blanch, but it’s an interesting back-of-the-envelope exercise in balancing costs and return on investment.
A thoughtful call for equality of economic opportunity, both provocative and, in the end, eminently practical.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9780262048392
Page Count: 384
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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