by Jonathan C. Randal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 2004
A masterful work of reporting, and of great importance in understanding the rise of modern Islamic terrorism and its...
Osama bin Laden: part Robin Hood, part Che Guevara, part Saladin, part “religious pop star in a land hungering for inspirational role models,” and part Old Man of the Mountains, “whose votaries so intimidated Middle Eastern contemporaries that they were dubbed Assassins.”
So writes former Washington Post foreign correspondent Randal (After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?, 1997), who apologizes for not having been able to interview bin Laden personally. It wasn’t for lack of trying, says Randal; bin Laden even responded to one of his repeated requests for a meeting by asking who translated it—because, bin Laden added, the Arabic version was terrible. The response, Randal says, suggests bin Laden’s command of English (and, he adds, even hints that bin Laden has a sense of humor). Bin Laden has knowledge of many things, some not strictly in keeping with the strictures of fundamentalist Islam: “Not for him were Taliban prohibitions on such symbols of modernity as computers, television sets, audio- and videotapes, which were ritually draped by the religious police from trees as satanic works of the infidels.” Randal may not have met bin Laden, but he has talked with many who have known the 47-year-old Saudi demiroyal over the years, and he provides details that have not been widely circulated: bin Laden is, strictly speaking, illegitimate, which has complicated his relationship with his half-siblings, whom the king of Saudi Arabia effectively adopted after their father’s death. His austerity separated him early on from others in his cohort, for bin Laden has been involved in some form of militant Islam since at least the 1970s, when “he showed little interest in the pleasures and experimentation that rich Saudi children indulge in at home and abroad.” He has attracted a huge following, but bin Laden would not have become a fundamentalist hero had the CIA not been around: Saudi Prince Bandar remembers that Osama thanked him for “bringing the Americans to help us” in Afghanistan—adding, “At that time, I thought he couldn’t lead eight ducks across the street.”
A masterful work of reporting, and of great importance in understanding the rise of modern Islamic terrorism and its singular personification.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2004
ISBN: 0-375-40901-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
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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...
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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
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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
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