Mixing research with personal experience, Jin offers critical insights about the future of China and its global impact.
A respected academic provides a nuanced examination of China’s past, present, and future.
China has always been difficult for many Westerners to understand, but the issue has become increasingly crucial as the country’s global role has grown. Jin, who grew up in China and retains strong connections there, was educated in the U.S. and is now a professor at the London School of Economics. With this background, she is well qualified to play the role of cultural interpreter. She has a special interest in the problems now emerging in China as the society struggles to move from an unremitting focus on economic growth to quality-of-life and equity issues. Jin notes that China’s transition from an impoverished, rural country to a wealthy, urbanized society has been remarkably fast. The private sector has driven the growth, especially in the past two decades, but the government remains firmly in control, with a complex system of incentives, rules, easy credit, and government-owned enterprises. The author traces key policies since the time of Deng, and she delves into the impact of the “one-child policy,” an area often overlooked by armchair commentators. For the most part, the Chinese people are willing to accept government direction, including a high degree of personal surveillance and intervention in their lives. They value security over freedom and generally believe that China requires a powerful central authority. Significantly, the younger generation is in many ways more conservative than their parents despite their taste for Western brands and lifestyles. Jin acknowledges China’s incredible progress but wonders what the future holds. “China’s central leadership, which spurred the most successful economic growth story of our time, could also make choices that might have the opposite effect in the future,” she concludes. “The power of the state provides the system’s greatest potential and also poses its gravest inherent risk.”
Mixing research with personal experience, Jin offers critical insights about the future of China and its global impact.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9781984878281
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
Despite countless books about Lincoln and those in his orbit, Chase is an important figure who merits this capable study.
In a follow-up to Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man and Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary, Stahr turns his attention to the president’s treasury secretary.
Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873) was also the sixth chief justice of the Supreme Court and a major player in pushing for Black emancipation and voting rights, and he created the first national bank system and paper currency at a time of deep conflict and crisis during the Civil War. Born in New Hampshire, Chase cut his teeth in Ohio law and politics, where he evolved from an ambitious dilettante regarding slavery to a ferocious defender of fugitive slaves and Black voting rights. His parents died young, leaving behind 10 children and “substantial debt,” and Chase went to live with one of his uncles, an Episcopalian bishop who founded Kenyon College. Like many Chases before him, he graduated from Dartmouth College and studied law until he passed the bar in 1829. In Stahr’s overlong yet sturdy narrative, Chase emerges a driven young man determined to make his mark. He headed a vigorous law practice in Cincinnati and served in the Senate and as the governor of Ohio. As the nation began to break apart along pro- and anti-slavery lines, Chase embraced the Whig Party but found ultimately that it could not incorporate the anti-slavery movement. He advocated first for the Liberty Party, then became an important founder of the Republican Party, on whose ticket Lincoln ran for president. While Chase was brought up multiple times as a presidential candidate, he was best suited as ally, and Lincoln relied on him, despite the rival status, as treasury secretary during the Civil War and then as chief justice. During his tenure as justice, he supported the first Black man to the bar and dissented strongly in a case that prohibited a woman from practicing law. He also presided over the Andrew Johnson impeachment, a key moment in this well-researched account.
Despite countless books about Lincoln and those in his orbit, Chase is an important figure who merits this capable study.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9923-3
Page Count: 832
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Surprisingly optimistic, realistic, and persuasive.
Positive news on climate change from an expert.
The degradation is well underway, and matters will get worse before they get better. However, according to this enthusiastic account by engineer and MacArthur fellow Griffith, real change is possible with today’s scientific know-how and an energetic effort. Overcoming the problem of global climate change—essentially by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions to zero—requires a tricky combination of politics and technology. Largely avoiding politics, Griffith emphasizes technology. His solution is to electrify everything. “America can reduce its energy use by more than half by introducing no other efficiency measures other than electrification,” he writes. This climate-friendly future will contain the usual familiar objects in our lives, affecting cars, homes, offices, appliances, etc., but miraculous breakthroughs (fusion power, sucking carbon from the atmosphere) won’t be necessary. Griffith warns that America is stuck in the 1970s mindset of conservation with the mantra “Reduce! Reuse! Recycle.” This has produced great improvements in gas mileage and home insulation and more efficient appliances, but you can’t “efficiency” your way to zero. In a torrent of technical explanation, graphs, and tables, Griffith shows how solar and wind power are already cheaper despite massive subsidies and tax breaks that support fossil fuel companies. He proposes that the government subsidize upfront costs of switching—about $40,000 per household—by guaranteeing low-interest “climate loans.” As he notes, “if US policymakers can offer [these loans] at the right rate, the transition to clean energy will start saving us money today.” To critics proclaiming that the Green New Deal would be a budget-busting government handout, he points out that the U.S. has launched similar programs in the past. For example, it began subsidizing long-term home mortgages in 1933, and predictions of a massive loss of taxpayer money never happened. Indeed, writes Griffith, the result will be prosperity: more jobs and less poverty, with no sacrifice of our current lifestyle.
Surprisingly optimistic, realistic, and persuasive.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-262-04623-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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