A sharp-tongued, altogether readable, and welcome assault on unrestrained wealth.
A charged study of the second-tier wealthy in America, the principal engine of inequality.
Yes, the richest of the rich own a disproportionate share of the world’s wealth, the top one-thousandth who “now own almost one quarter of everything of economic value in the country.” This represents an index of inequality that, writes philosopher and historian Stewart, we haven’t seen since before the Great Depression. Overlooked, though, are the remaining 9.9 percent in that top-10 tier, those whose net worth, beginning in the low millions, collectively embraces “more than half of [the] personal wealth in the nation.” These people, overwhelmingly White and well educated, are enthusiastic proponents of the myths of merit and the wisdom of the free market (“the great opiate of the 9.9 percent”), which is not free and also generates inequality as a feature and not a bug. Indeed, the capture and hoarding of so many financial resources by this cohort yields inequality on every front: enclaved neighborhoods that constitute de facto segregated housing, elite schools that constitute de facto segregated education, and an academia that is all too willing to support these inequalities and the accompanying politics of unreason. “Intellectuals like Amy Chua and Jonathan Haidt occupy the most meritorious perches in the American hierarchy of learning,” writes Stewart. “Why do they have so much trouble calling a con job a con job? If they are not standing up for reason, then who is?” Those are questions demanding answers, and underlying them is that politics of unreason, which “always favors injustice over justice and…always targets those who are most vulnerable.” Stewart’s charges are comprehensive, and sometimes he can be a little testy (“Universal American stupidity was undoubtedly a comorbidity factor for Covid-19”), but he matches them with a reasonable demand for a commitment to economic justice that would elevate all Americans, not just the lucky few.
A sharp-tongued, altogether readable, and welcome assault on unrestrained wealth.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982114-18-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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