Despite its many virtues, this book may not appeal to those outside the choir to which it aims to preach.
A spirited, data-driven argument that our computerized voting system is frighteningly vulnerable to corruption.
In his first book, Simon brings his considerable experience on voting matters to bear; he is the executive director of Election Defense Alliance, a nonprofit voting rights watchdog. He argues that what at first appears like a triumph of progress, the widespread application of new voting technology, actually generates myriad opportunities for partisan sabotage. First, the allure of greater convenience comes at the price of transparency: newly secretive elections basically take place in the “impenetrable darkness of cyberspace.” Second, the technology is largely under the control of conservative organizations committed to winning at all costs, and aided by a “right-wing media machine” enthusiastic to serve as an accomplice. The result is a massive “red shift,” a disparity between the tabulated success of conservatives in elections and their projected success, which the author believes could only be explained by pervasive fraud. The scope of the book is broad, covering related topics like campaign finance and gerrymandering, and includes an instructive discussion of exit polls and Internet voting. The author also discusses a host of hotly contested and potentially manipulated elections, presidential and otherwise. Much of the work is written in a “Q&A format,” which makes for highly readable prose, especially helpful since some of the positions necessarily depend on complex statistical analysis. The book’s partisan approach, however, will limit readership by painting a picture of sheepish Democrats victimized by Republican wolves. The author sometimes omits information that subverts his thesis and offers discredited positions. For example, Dan Rather was not fired from CBS because he had the temerity to question George W. Bush’s military record but because he engaged in what was widely viewed as a transgression of journalistic standards. Overall, the text offers an often rigorous account of an important issue.
Despite its many virtues, this book may not appeal to those outside the choir to which it aims to preach.Pub Date: March 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5003-1985-4
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2015
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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