A powerful case for independent thought.
Kavanagh explores the hazards of blind allegiance to political and religious ideologies in this nonfiction debut.
Born into a conservative Irish Catholic home, the author was taught (or in his words, “indoctrinated”) to simply accept the family’s religious faith without question. At the time, he found comfort in his unbridled loyalty to this belief system, which not only provided cut-and-dried answers to the complexities of life and death, but also promised its adherents that their “status and identity would be raised to new heights.” Yet an off-putting experience during confession (related to the sin of eating meat on a Friday), combined with contradictory messages from Church leadership, prompted Kavanagh to question his faith as a teenager. Later, during a college visit to Yale (where he would eventually earn a degree), the author was introduced to the scholarship on genocide, learning of the interwoven histories of ideological movements and extreme violence. With a subsequent graduate degree from Columbia University, and as the CEO of Market Corporation of America, Kavanagh draws on his own personal experiences and solid grasp of world history to make his case against ideological extremism. The book begins with an interdisciplinary look at the psychological attraction of ideologies across the political and religious spectrums, emphasizing how they offer adherents the “the promise of a better life or better world,” ease anxieties, and provide access to social groups that “give meaning to their lives.” He goes on to examine how power-hungry leaders have exploited ideologies for their own ends and the roles of ideologies in fostering some of history’s grimmest examples of brutality.
The strength of the book lies in its critique of extremism on all sides. In surveying the popularity of Donald Trump, for instance, Kavanagh discusses the corrosive aspects of Christian Nationalism on American democracy, from targeting reproductive rights to the marginalization of immigrants, non-Christians, and others deemed “second class citizens.” Alternately, the author details the failures of Leftist movements in providing promised utopias, noting the death tolls associated with the killing fields of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and Mao’s Great Famine and Cultural Revolution in China. Indeed, per Kavanagh’s convincing historical narrative, nearly all of the world’s worst atrocities—from transatlantic slavery to the Holocaust—have ideological roots. Making the case against “absolutism” (which the book defines as “The Refuge of Small Minds”), the author urges readers to question the ideological fallacies that they may blindly embrace and offers pragmatic advice for “developing well-grounded, bottoms-up belief systems” based on openness, high standards of evidence, research, and intellectual honesty. Writing explicitly for a general audience, Kavanagh here aims to provide “ordinary people” with a path toward ideological freedom. His accessible writing style is backed by a solid grasp of the relevant academic literature—the text is accompanied by two dozen pages of endnotes and bibliographic citations. While at times a bit reductionist in its terminology (for instance, using simplistic definitions of “Evangelical Christianity” that ignore the vibrant history of America’s Black churches in defying their white counterparts), the book otherwise mounts a powerful argument against extremism on all sides. A useful appendix offers readers a systematic timeline of “Mass Killing[s] By Ideology,” providing thorough documentation of ideological violence associated with imperialism, racism, religious fanaticism, and other scurrilous ideas.
A powerful case for independent thought.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9798339528289
Page Count: 171
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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