A trenchant critique of the Left’s economic radicalism, coupling shrewd analysis with a stinging polemic.
The hypertrophy of the federal government has brought socialism out of hibernation and turned it into a dire threat to the American economy, according to this sweeping historical study.
Distinguishing his subject from the “traditional Left” of liberals, labor unions, and other moderate leftists, Young warns of a resurgent socialist Left with Marxist roots, among whom he numbers Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other congressional Squad members, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the campus protest Left. The author focuses on their economic agenda, which, he argues, envisions the federal government taking over and nationalizing most of the economy, providing free education and health care, guaranteeing housing and jobs, and imposing confiscatory wealth taxes. The result, he contends, would be a sluggish, inefficient, moribund economy crushed by a terminally bloated government sector. Starting in the Obama administration, Young argues, this socialist Left reemerged to try to commandeer the federal government juggernaut by taking over the Democratic Party. The author presents an intricate and wide-ranging analysis of American economics and politics, one that has both interpretive breadth and a wealth of statistical detail. He’s especially good on the socio-economic miracle of colonial America, with its unprecedented levels of prosperity and equality based in self-government, and on the New Deal’s radical break with the American pattern of limited government. At times, he overstates the gap between the Sanders-AOC program and Democratic Party traditions, but he makes a vigorous case that their approach is economically and politically unsustainable because of its heavy tax and regulatory burdens. Young conveys all of this in lucid prose that packs an aphoristic punch. (“As a multiplicity of movements with at least as many voices and priorities, the socialist Left is political schizophrenia.”) Leftists and honest-to-God socialists will find much to dispute here, but Young offers a compelling conservative riposte to progressive orthodoxies.
A trenchant critique of the Left’s economic radicalism, coupling shrewd analysis with a stinging polemic.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9798891381292
Page Count: 432
Publisher: RealClear Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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