A political work that skillfully follows the threads that run from Rousseau to modern thinkers.
A survey focuses on more than 200 years of political thought about equality.
As America’s wealth gap widens and the pressure builds to finally address its legacy of racial inequality, law professor Penegar raises a timely question. Has liberty been pursued at the expense of equality, making equality the “lost twin” of liberty? “Both ideals are important enough under our existing forms and traditions of government that they should be pursued or supported together,” he suggests in his brisk and often insightful survey that ranges from Rousseau to John Rawls. But “somehow Equality has been cut off from or less favored than Liberty.” As Penegar shows, Rousseau strove “for a greater depth of equality so intrinsically linked to liberty that they will advance together or falter in comparable measure.” The two concepts got equal billing in the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the founding documents of the American and French revolutions. But the word equality does not appear in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights and, of course, didn’t apply to the enslaved. In the mid-19th-century thoughts of Herbert Spencer, Penegar notes, equality “scarcely rises to the level of an ideal on the same plane as liberty” but “will come, when it comes, by dint of the force of social evolution.” The author deftly traces the theoretical strands up to the present day, touching on such thinkers as Henry George, who argued that financial capitalism was “destroying democracy by making economic equality impossible,” and Ronald Dworkin, who stressed that “equality does not have to bend its knee to liberty.” The book flounders a bit at times with repetitions and errors—British social reformer William Beveridge is rendered as “William Beverage.” Penegar is also occasionally given to overstatement. One wonders, for example, how much the British Labour Party’s victory in the 1945 election “extinguished a century’s worth of power arrangements favoring the traditions of land, finance and industry and the established leadership class made up of Etonians and Ox-bridge alumni” when Boris Johnson, an Old Etonian and Oxford alumnus, is now the country’s prime minister.
A political work that skillfully follows the threads that run from Rousseau to modern thinkers.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62894-422-8
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Algora Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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