Despite occasionally mixed messages, Dallek manages to unpeel the layers of a complex political narrative clearly and...
A focused look at the events leading to (and the ramifications of) Ronald Reagan’s victory over incumbent Pat Brown in California’s 1966 governor’s race.
Slate columnist Dallek tries to answer the question of how Reagan, an actor with virtually no experience in politics outside the Screen Actors Guild and guest appearances at fundraisers, could beat Brown, a popular governor of eight years and a career politician. The answer, he argues, was in Reagan’s timing and the national political climate of the era, for California’s gubernatorial election of 1966 serves as a microcosm of the post-WWII national political narrative—a narrative of which it may be seen as the culmination. A big part of this story is the rise and fall of liberalism; the author maintains that Brown’s political career began when Democratic policies had just saved the nation from the depression, but by the end of his governorship, student protests at Berkeley, the Watts race riots, and his association with the Vietnam War had chipped away at Brown’s popularity. His defeat, in a sense, was also the defeat of liberalism. “When Pat Brown went down, so did the philosophy that he had clung to throughout his adult life.” Unfortunately, once Brown is off the scene, Dallek’s account also goes rapidly downhill. For, although he declares at the start that “Ronald Reagan redefined politics like no one since Franklin Roosevelt” and spends every other chapter detailing Reagan’s career (in acting and in politics), he has little of substance to say about Reagan—on whom there is no lack of literature (including as the author notes, two books by Brown himself).
Despite occasionally mixed messages, Dallek manages to unpeel the layers of a complex political narrative clearly and adroitly—and to offer an exciting analysis of American politics.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-84320-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A superficial, unreliable profile of the PLO's often articulate, photogenic spokesperson during part of the Intifada, and particularly during the Madrid and Washington negotiations with Israel (199193). Victor, a novelist as well as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, maintains near the beginning of her book that Hanan Ashrawi ``was the one person who had made possible [Yasir] Arafat's presence'' on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993, when his famous ``handshake'' with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took place. Not only does she not make a case for this extraordinary claim, but Victor demonstrates how, throughout most of 1993, the PLO leader kept Ashrawi ``in the dark'' about the secret Oslo negotiations. Her book also is riddled with the kind of errors that make one question her knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For example, Victor twice claims that the 1917 Balfour Declaration was issued in 1921; the second time, she asserts that it ``provided for two states, Israel and Palestine, to exist side by side.'' Nonsense: The declaration made no reference to any ``state,'' only to Great Britain supporting the establishment of a ``Jewish homeland'' in Palestine, which was soon to be a British mandate. Equally irritating are Victor's stylistic excesses, her use of the kind of hyperbolic prose found in ``puff'' pieces, such as her assertion that Ashrawi's ``razor-sharp responses captured world opinion every time that she faced a camera.'' Earlier this year, Ashrawi resigned from the PLO leadership to establish and head an independent Palestinian human rights monitoring group. It is this, not the media glitz she enjoyed as a PLO spokesperson, that may lend her career its real significance. Until we know whether and how Hanan Ashrawi will contribute to the humanitarian nature of a possible Palestinian state, any biography of her, particularly one as lacking in historical and biographical depth as Victor's, is premature.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-15-103968-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of...
A provocative book by a senior editor of the New Republic, author of Three Scientists and Their Gods (1988), examining the vibrant new science of evolutionary psychology.
Even though, according to this science, natural selection has molded human nature into a deterministic pattern of selfish behavior, says Wright, there is still hope for developing a common moral outlook as long as we accept the ramifications of our evolutionary legacy. Natural selection insures that individuals are subconsciously preoccupied with the propagation of their genes. Although the cold, underlying logic of natural selection doesn't care about our happiness, it fools us into thinking that by pursuing goals that make us happy, we will maximize our genetic legacy. Lost in this pursuit is any genuine concern about community welfare. This volume covers much of the same ground as William Allman's superb overview The Stone Age Present. Wright extends Allman's arguments in much richer detail and a more authoritative tone, although he explains the science in a more roundabout manner. He weaves a complex and fascinating treatise in explaining the paradox of how society can engender moral and responsible actions when a strict Darwinian interpretation implies that human behavior is deterministic. Wright resolves this paradox by arguing that once people understand the Darwinian paradigm, they will understand their own subconscious motives, which is the first step towards addressing the bias toward self that natural selection instills in our minds.
Many readers will feel uneasy reading Wright's dark and cynical portrayal of human nature, but he does a superb job of anticipating questions and objections. He points to a growing body of evidence that says this is the way we are whether we like it or not, and he argues we're better off if we accept this fact.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40773-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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