by Jessica Smartt Gullion ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 2015
Likely to be well-received in the academy and elsewhere largely unread.
A sociologist offers an ethnography of an unlikely group of environmental health activists.
The densely populated Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex sits atop the Barnett Shale, among the world’s most developed sources of natural gas extracted from the sedimentary rock by the controversial method of hydraulic fracturing. Certain residents, believing they have identified harm to the environment and to their own health attributable to fracking, have vigorously opposed the gas companies’ agenda. The threats posed by fracking, the uncommon urban site—hard by schools, homes, and businesses—and the unusual nature of the aggrieved class—white, middle- to upper-class, highly educated, generally conservative—combine in a petri dish examined by Gullion (Sociology/Texas Woman’s Univ.; October Birds: A Novel About Pandemic Influenza, Infection Control, and First Responders, 2014), a self-identified “academic activist.” The best parts of the book are the author’s handy and efficient summations of the long-standing oil and gas culture of Texas, the conflicts stemming from the state’s mineral and surface rights laws, the tangled mess of regulatory agencies with hazy authority over issues of concern, the day-to-day operations at a natural gas site, and the health hazards that may (or may not) be traced to fracking. Embedded among the activists, Gullion embraces “a feminist ethic of co-created knowledge,” and there follows talk of “positionality,” “sexual ecological violence,” natural spaces as “heteronormative,” “epistemic privilege,” science “problematized,” and “performative environmentalism.” This off-putting language, no doubt the occasion for secret handshakes within her discipline, smothers some good stories Gullion has to tell—for example, about activists looking to be the next Erin Brockovich, about eliciting a straight answer from bureaucrats, about the toll constant vigilance imposes—and too often dulls the general reader’s interest.
Likely to be well-received in the academy and elsewhere largely unread.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-262-02976-6
Page Count: 216
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jessica Smartt Gullion
BOOK REVIEW
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
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
Share your opinion of this book
by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
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
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.