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
BOOK REVIEW
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
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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