by Kathleen Gerson ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 1993
In a vivid, precise, but limited study, Gerson (Sociology/ N.Y.U.) extends to men the problems she explored in Hard Choices (1985), a study of women's dilemmas with family and career. Here, she concludes that there are more differences among men on these issues than there are between men and women. Gerson's findings are based on interviews with 138 men between the ages of 28 and 45 living in the metropolitan New York area whose names appeared either on alumni lists of a local, unnamed university or on labor-council lists—lists that offered a sampling that was 94% non-Hispanic white: Missing, in addition to a representative proportion of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Hispanics, are the chronically impoverished or unemployed. The interviews traced life trajectories, including the various traumas and challenges the men had encountered. Gerson groups her subjects into three orientations: ``breadwinning'' (men who either by choice or accident are providers in the traditional sense); ``autonomous'' (men who are single, married without children, divorced, or widowed) and ``involved'' (men who, as nurturers or helpers, place an emphasis on their families). Contrary to popular belief, Gerson finds that only half of the men actually chose to be breadwinners— a role, she points out, that arose with the Industrial Revolution. Each role here has its own strengths and problems: A breadwinner requires the support of a full-time housewife and is uncomfortable with challenges to his prerogatives; an autonomous man may be unable to form close emotional ties or hold a job, and may end up as a ``deadbeat dad''; the involved man may suffer economically for the time he devotes to his children. Gerson concludes with a philosophical essay on the male myth and the politics of gender. In spite of the limited and slanted population sampling: a persuasively argued, sympathetic contribution to the growing literature of male liberation.
Pub Date: July 28, 1993
ISBN: 0-465-06316-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
Share your opinion of this book
by Howard Zinn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1979
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
Share your opinion of this book
More by Rebecca Stefoff
BOOK REVIEW
by Howard Zinn ; adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with by Ed Morales
BOOK REVIEW
by Howard Zinn with Ray Suarez
BOOK REVIEW
by Howard Zinn
by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
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
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.