A dizzying read, but a timely and important work.
All the president’s men of Houston receive a powerful lashing in this soundly researched, only occasionally sarcastic exposé of high-level corruption by investigative journalist Anderson (Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection, 2003, etc.).
The author skillfully moves from the 15-block section of downtown Houston that anchors such corporate giants as Reliant Energy, Enron, Shell Oil, Dynegy Corp. and James A. Baker III’s Institute for Public Policy (at Rice University) to the power center of George W. Bush’s Washington. With the changing of the guard in Texas in 1994—when Governor Ann Richards was voted out and the mild-mannered George W. moved in (thanks to the behind-the-scenes machinations of Karl Rove)—the Republicans had a “pig roast.” And with the Republican surge came the right-wing Congressman Tom DeLay, who was seemingly innocuous until he became majority whip in 1995. A dangerous Republican trio was formed by Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, who gained access to DeLay through his chief of staff Ed Buckham. Together, they effectively worked as lobbyists for many dubious and (for them) lucrative enterprises, such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which would eventually pay Abramoff some $7.2 million in lobbying fees and provide the convenient off-site location for U.S. Family Network (USFN), DeLay’s “grassroots” organization used for political contributions and money laundering. Another pet lobby was the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which paid Abramoff grandly to lobby against the proposed federal tax on Indian casino profits. Anderson ably chronicles this incredible tale of unbridled greed in government by “Casino Jack” and “DeLay, Inc.” and follows the money trail through the infamous 2000 presidential election recount and the rigging of justice over the war in Iraq. The trail leads to Texas cronies Dick Cheney, Jim Baker and Alberto Gonzales, who all get a thrashing here, though Anderson falls short of indicting the president, who is chastised for his lack of “oversight.”
A dizzying read, but a timely and important work.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-8643-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
