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A HISTORY OF DOGS IN THE EARLY AMERICAS

A clunkily written but fairly fascinating history of dogs in the pre-Columbian Americas, from Schwartz, a research assistant in anthropology at Yale. Working from ethnohistorical accounts, chronicles, codices, hieroglyphics, linguistic sources, and artwork, Schwartz takes the measure of what dogs meant to the early Americans. She goes back into the mists, detailing morphological, ecological, and genetic traits that, combined with the cultural and biological components of domestication, make a dog a dog and not a wolf gone soft. Schwartz covers familiar ground as she describes what is thought to be the first human association with dogs (as camp guards, scavengers, and pack animals); the dawning awareness among humans that a dog's superior sight, hearing, and smell could be used to advantage in stalking game (from the Iglulik of the far north, who used them to hunt musk oxen, to the Patagonians way south, who employed them in hunting guanacos); and the growing importance of dogs in the myths of such diverse groups as the Cheyenne and Penobscot, the Inca, Aztec, and Mayan cultures. The book starts to get really interesting when Schwartz delves into cultures that ate dogs (as either a spiritual or gastronomic delicacy), and into the fancy rituals fashioned to rationalize the consumption of a creature that humans found a little more kindred than, say, a chicken. And her foray into the symbolic and metaphorical complexities of pre-Columbian art about dogs—the dog as archetype, as omen and totem, as guide to the afterlife—is much the best part of the book, as Schwartz relaxes, hits a fanciful speculative stride, and shows off her research talents to their best advantage. For the Indians, no less than for modern Americans, having a dog around required evaluating the benefits ``of keeping dogs versus the cost of maintaining them.'' The benefits began winning out, Schwartz demonstrates, a long time ago. (84 illustrations, not seen)

Pub Date: June 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-300-06964-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Yale Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1997

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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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

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GOOD ECONOMICS FOR HARD TIMES

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

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