An important historical account of the Trump era from a wide range of perspectives that nonetheless coheres.
An example of the value of historical analyses of very recent events, this book gives us some historians’ first takes on the Trump presidency.
“The Trump presidency was not an aberration but the culmination of more than three decades in the GOP’s evolution,” writes editor Zelizer, encapsulating a primary theme. With all of the essayists supporting that claim, the book demonstrates unusual coherence as well as admirable clarity, and the individual essays cover a vast array of topics: the Republican and Democratic parties, right-wing media, truth and disinformation, White supremacy, Latinx issues, women’s issues, immigration, infrastructure, climate change, race, class, technology, international relations (both generally and specifically about China and the nations of the Middle East), the FBI, and Covid-19. It’s a testament to the overall quality that one wishes for even wider coverage—essays, say, on the psychopathology of politics and on political language. Yet despite such gaps, the book’s contents, just as historical writing should, supersede earlier on-the-spot journalistic reportage of the Trump administration. Each essay adds context and fresh perspective to the events of a precedent-shattering presidency as well as causal explanations of much of what occurred. Occasionally, the contributors repeat oft-quoted words and cite well-known episodes, and facts about many front-page figures and events fill its pages. But little of what they write fails to cast welcome light on how and why the U.S. entered a new political era in 2016. Zelizer himself offers an excellent concise history of the Republican Party’s recent history, and other essayists conform to his balanced, sober, scholarly approach, which will be demanding for general readers. What’s most commendable is that all of their arguments and extensive knowledge are advanced in nonpartisan, critically fair, and neutral form. Given the variety of subjects, the result is an authoritative multiauthored contemporary history. Contributors include Michael Kazin, Mae Ngai, James Mann, Nicole Hemmer, and Margaret O’Mara.
An important historical account of the Trump era from a wide range of perspectives that nonetheless coheres.Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-691-22893-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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