An elegant, carefully delineated synthesis of the complicated, intertwined facets of the Arab uprisings.
A nuanced analysis of the factors leading to revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.
Cole (History/Univ. of Michigan; Engaging the Muslim World, 2009, etc.) finds that the uprisings by the people of these three nations against their oppressive rulers share important similarities that contributed to their success—unlike in the doomed scenario in Syria. All had a majority of disaffected, mostly unemployed young people, left-leaning youth living in towns or cities who had absorbed important lessons from the previous generation’s anti-American, Leninist, hierarchical ways. Most of the members of “Arab Gen Y” were unmarried, literate and nonreligious; some had worked outside of their countries, and all were intimately savvy about the Internet (chat room and forums) and the ways around their countries’ censorship. These young people were able to use the Internet to consolidate lateral alliances of “political breadth and flexibility”—e.g., creating new spaces and blogs to air incidences of police brutality. The Gaza War of 2008-2009 radicalized many youth, while the economic downturn of 2008 forced the “idling” of young workers. Moreover, the prospect of the ruling dynasties establishing “republican monarchies” (grooming sons or sons-in-law for succession) with no true sovereign legitimacy betrayed the 1950s revolutions that had won their countries’ independence from imperial powers. With the Internet to open their eyes, writes Cole, “the gap between rhetoric and reality was all the easier for the millennials to see.” The youth declared “Kefaya!” (enough), which became the Egyptian rallying cry. In Egypt and Tunisia, the military sided with the popular uprising, while in Libya, the international community stepped in. Cole argues that in these three instances, revolutions met with success due to the fact that they fundamentally altered who controlled the wealth in those countries.
An elegant, carefully delineated synthesis of the complicated, intertwined facets of the Arab uprisings.Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9039-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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