A fun introduction to a serious topic that should serve as a starting point for further study and action.
Why hasn’t the environmental movement made a more significant impact on the health of our planet?
In this brief, energetic book, Price pleads for a more comprehensive environmentalism, which she defines as “in here” rather than “out there.” The rapidly paced, conversational narrative, loaded with bullet points, sidebars, pull quotes, and “Scribble Zone[s] (“write, draw, ponder…”), will catch the attention of some readers but annoy others. In addition to rhetorical swipes at “the Kochs and ultraright politicians,” the author advances some important, if familiar, arguments about the state of environmentalism. For decades, many major corporations have claimed “green” credentials that have been superficial at best. Coca Cola has pushed “Keep America Beautiful” since the 1950s, but the trash that used to litter sidewalks now just ends up in landfills. Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, introduced water bottles with less plastic but still “aggressively drains and privatizes public water sources to fill” those bottles. Apple’s headquarters is LEED certified, but what about its suppliers in China? In other words, notes Price, the “green efforts” of large corporations are mainly for show. While Barack Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” campaign seemed like a good idea, it required the trashing of working cars, at great environmental cost. The author focuses on discerning actual impact, including the “ultra-toxic industrial practices” needed to create such ostensibly environmentally friendly products as electric cars. We have “greenwashed” the economy to justify buying more and more “green” products while the root problem, rampant consumerism, goes unaddressed. The author’s criticisms about the destructive nature of capitalism are well taken yet require further development. Her more practical, real-world examples, most of which derive from European nations—“only glass beverage bottles allowed (Denmark, with a near 100% return rate”)—are the most effective parts of the book, which should not be viewed as a comprehensive resource.
A fun introduction to a serious topic that should serve as a starting point for further study and action.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-393-54087-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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