An articulate examination of an underrecognized aspect of human communication.
How we speak shapes our lives in powerful ways, argues a psychologist immersed in research on the subject.
In her persuasive first book, University of Chicago psychology professor Kinzler maintains that the way we speak, whether in a “foreign” accent, a “nonstandard” version of our own language, or a “high-status” one, affects both how we perceive the world and how we are perceived by others. Making judicious use of her own research as well as that of others, the author shows the deep roots of our reactions to language and its variations. Kinzler’s research is particularly fascinating: Many of her experiments were conducted with children less than 1 year old—sometimes just a couple months—and proved that even at this age, children are able to differentiate among accents and prefer those of their primary caregivers to any others. Perhaps more surprisingly, babies and children recognize language as one of the key defining aspects used in discriminating between “us” and “them”—even more essential than race. Kindergartners, for example, think that “someone who was white and spoke English was more likely to grow up to be black than grow up to speak French.” After comprehensively educating readers about the vital role that our speech plays in how we are viewed, Kinzler goes on to argue, using several legal cases as well as more formal research as evidence, that discrimination based on accent or regional speech is just as real as discrimination based on, say, race or national origin. In fact, it may be more insidious because it's often not consciously recognized by the individuals doing the discriminating. Writing informally and concisely, Kinzler aims to raise our awareness of this unnoticed prejudice so that we can put an end to it.
An articulate examination of an underrecognized aspect of human communication.Pub Date: July 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98655-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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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