A fascinating account of triumph against adversity, turned inside out.
A vigorous account of the improbable history that connects the near-extinction of the Pequot tribe in the late-18th century with their dominance of New England gaming in the late 20th.
Eisler (A Justice For All, 1993, etc.) is attentive to this tale’s absurd and tragic elements. During the 16th century, explorers described the Pequot Indians as “the most warlike, the fiercest” tribe of the eastern seaboard, and they were practically exterminated by 1800 as a result of violent wars of attrition, as well as impoverishment and disease. The author provides a tart history of the game of Bingo, depicting how the modest Depression-era “Beano” morphed into an addictive middle-American fundraising icon that was seized upon in the 1970s by Native Americans after various ill-starred moneymaking ventures had fallen through. Eisler introduces the dynamic personalities involved in the Pequot resurrection—notably Skip Hayward, whose grandmother was considered the last living resident of the swampy 200-acre Pequot reservation near Ledyard, Connecticut. Upon learning of the town’s plan to seize the reservation for parkland, Hayward convinced several dozen cousins to relocate and revive the tribe. He followed a tortuous legal path—abetted by the growing savvy of their lawyer, Tom Turreen, and crucial court decisions regarding tribal sovereignty—towards the establishment of Pequot gambling, first in lucrative poker parlors, then in construction of the well-known Foxwoods Casino (which, as Eisler documents, demolished the rural comfort treasured by Ledyard’s non-Pequot residents while offering the town little recompense). Although the story bogs down somewhat in tales of international financiers and municipal minutiae, the author captures a great deal of importance from the contemporary scene: the ironically destructive redress of old grievances, gambling advocates’ fondness for corrosive quick fixes, and the slow death of rarefied New England, urged along by economic strife and the region’s unacknowledged racial and class schisms. The tale concludes with Hayward’s forfeiture of tribal control to a young, venal, criminally connected clique, offering readers a final glimpse into mainstream gambling’s addictive, mirrored allure.
A fascinating account of triumph against adversity, turned inside out.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-684-85470-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
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