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MOTHER TROUBLES

RETHINKING CONTEMPORARY MATERNAL DILEMMAS

Abusive mothers, divorced mothers, lesbian mothers, immigrant mothers, plus adoption, work, theology, and reinventing “new” mothers are among the maternal issues discussed in this wide-ranging collection of essays. Most of the women who have contributed to this volume, including editor Hanigsberg, are distinguished legal scholars. The others, including editor Ruddick (New School for Social Research), have backgrounds in political science, ethics, and theology. Each writer addresses an aspect of how women in their roles as mothers are profoundly and directly affected by law, politics, and the often conflicting mores of North American culture. Ranging from the moving, as in the opening section by Eva Feder Kittay (Philosophy/SUNY, Stony Brook) on raising her disabled daughter, to the muddy—a chapter in the last section from Lisa Ikemoto (Law/Loyola Law School) that links tougher immigration policies and attitudes toward immigrant mothers with the “women and children first” survivors of the Titanic—the authors address often familiar material (such as Columbia law professor Carol Sanger’s comments on mothers who work), as well as provocative questions on judging pregnant women who use drugs (from lawyer Lynn Paltrow of the Women’s Law Project). Paltrow illuminates the debate over fetal rights vs. women’s rights among others and questions the dearth of programs available to treat addicted women, before or after delivery. Why not multiple mothers (birth mother and adoptive mother) is a question posed by Drucilla Cornell (Law, Women’s Studies, and Political Science/Rutgers) in one of several essays that advocate the “it-takes-a-village” model of raising children. Although many of the quandaries described fall in the “same old, same old” category, the concise arguments and descriptions of conflicts of law vs. culture often cast new light on familiar darkness.

Pub Date: Aug. 9, 1999

ISBN: 0-8070-6787-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

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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GOOD ECONOMICS FOR HARD TIMES

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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