An informative but starchy history of primaries and how they have hurt democracy and enabled Trumpism.
A political scientist scrutinizes the underappreciated role of America’s primary-election system in the nation’s ideological polarization and the rise of Donald Trump.
Jacobs, the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, argues that primary elections undermine democracy, offering a timely but pedantic blend of a scholarly history of primaries and a critique of their enduring harms. Fearing rule by “the mob” instead of the gentry, James Madison and other framers made no mention of primaries in the Constitution, and as late as 1968, party bosses still controlled the selection of most delegates. That began to change with the election reforms of the 1970s, following Richard Nixon’s defeat of Hubert Humphrey, who ran in no primaries. The reforms weakened the influence of the old-school bosses and strengthened “a new network of party activists, organized groups, and donors.” These groups demand loyalty to their favored policies rather than to a party and, like Trump supporters, tend to be more ideologically extreme than voters in general. The author’s tightly structured arguments often read like expanded PowerPoint presentations without bullet points, as he covers the “two profound shifts in the party system in the past 50 years; the “three features” of strong democracy in the 1780s; the “four critical junctures” for election rules; “the five extraordinary consequences” of the rise of presidential primaries; and other enumerations. Jacobs also describes the “three sturdy barriers” to reforms he supports, such as having more unpledged “superdelegates” to nominating conventions, and he recalls historical injustices in the Jim Crow South, where Black voters were barred from casting ballots. All of this material will have high appeal for primary-election wonks, but it gives the sense that its natural readership consists of people who will be tested on the material at the end of the semester.
An informative but starchy history of primaries and how they have hurt democracy and enabled Trumpism.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-19-087724-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A timely, spirited collection.
A compendium of feminist perspectives.
Essayist, memoirist, and fiction writer Gay represents the history, scope, and challenges of feminism in a judicious selection of 65 pieces, some written by iconic feminist writers (bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Susan B. Anthony), others by collectives, and still others by lesser-known voices. Citing “dynamism” as her guiding principle, Gay has chosen works that are articulate, diverse, and hard-hitting. “I believe there is a feminist canon,” Gay writes, “one that is subjective and always evolving, but also representative of a long, rich tradition of feminist scholarship.” The pieces are grouped into eight thematic sections. Foundational texts include a statement of guiding principles for the 2017 Women’s March; early feminist texts begin with 16th-century scholar Henricus Cornelius Agrippa’s defense of women’s superiority and includes Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Anthony’s argument for women’s right to vote. Other well-known pieces include Judy Brady’s wry “I Want a Wife,” a 1970 essay reprinted in the first issue of Ms. magazine; Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me”; and Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate.” There are also fresh surprises: “The Woman-Identified Woman,” a manifesto written by six women calling themselves Radicalesbians, argues that lesbianism is central to feminist politics “as an identity of political, cultural, and erotic resistance to patriarchy.” In “Girl,” novelist Alexander Chee reflects on gender fluidity, remembering being mistaken for a girl when he was growing up and revealing the beauty he finds when he puts on drag. With its capacious perspective, the collection speaks to a range of feminist concerns, past, present, and future. As Gay notes, “women’s bodies, movements, and choices are contingent on the whims of men in power. We have made progress but we are not yet free.”
A timely, spirited collection.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780143110392
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As Wonder Woman might say, Suffering Sappho! This book is fascinating, fun, and consistently enlightening.
From Penelope and Pandora to Katniss Everdeen and Lisbeth Salander, the "hero's journey" gets a much-needed makeover.
In her latest, Tatar—the Harvard professor of folklore and mythology and Germanic languages and literature who has annotated collections of classic fairy tales, Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, among others—begins by pointing out that all of the faces of heroism discussed in Joseph Campbell's influential book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), are male. To correct this requires a revision of the concept of heroism itself, rooted in numerous foundational texts. Starting with Greek mythology and Scheherezade and moving through the centuries all the way to the Game of Thrones series and The Queen's Gambit, Tatar incisively explores women's reinvention of heroism to embrace empathy, compassion, and care, often to pursue social justice. Among the many high points in this engaging study: an analysis of Little Women and Anne of Green Gables as autofiction, Jurassic Park as a reimagining of “Hansel and Gretel,” Harriet the Spy as an antiheroine, and a deep dive into the backstory of Wonder Woman. Receiving their own chapters are female sleuths such as Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, and the less well known characters of Kate Fansler, an academic, and Blanche White, who is Black. The book really takes off when it gets to contemporary culture, particularly in a section that identifies a female version of the "trickster" archetype in Everdeen and Salander. Of this lineage, among the shared interesting traits not traditionally associated with women characters is a prodigious appetite. "Like Gretel, Pippi Longstocking, and Lisbeth Salander before her,” writes Tatar, “Katniss gorges on rich food yet her hunger never ceases." The text is illustrated with many reproductions of paintings and other artwork—including a postcardworthy panel from the original Wonder Woman—that add much to the text.
As Wonder Woman might say, Suffering Sappho! This book is fascinating, fun, and consistently enlightening.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-881-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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