An analytically rigorous and thorough discussion of a pivotal political topic.
Weiss reflects on the challenges of recruiting Generation Z Americans for military service.
According to the author, an officer in the United States Marines, current recruitment shortfalls for the military are “terrifyingly grim,” and all the signs point to trends that “spell doom.” In Weiss’ view, this is especially worrisome given the rising menace of war across the globe and the enthusiastic patriotism of young citizens in China who are “nationalistic and ready to fight.” The principal issue, he asserts, is the failure of the military to connect with members of Generation Z, a generational cohort to which the author belongs. To both understand and rectify the problem, Weiss paints a fascinating portrait of a chronically misunderstood generation, one that is fiercely competitive and driven by a desire to make a unique, impactful difference in the world rather than just collect credentials. From his astute analysis, the author draws a bevy of practical conclusions about what successful recruitment would look like and how the military should refashion itself to be more appealing to a generation of prospective soldiers with its own set of demands and needs. For example, Weiss argues that the military should relax its admission rules regarding drug use, as recreational marijuana use is so common among Zoomers. Beyond specific proposals, the author convincingly argues that a major shift in American culture needs to be made to include a positive positioning of military service that prepares young people to embrace it. “Making it so socially desirable to dedicate time to national service has to be the preferred route forward. Apart from everything discussed already, the truly only way to do this is to make service part of the normal conversation of youth development in the U.S.” This is a wide-ranging and expert discussion of a complex issue, conveyed in unfailingly clear language.
An analytically rigorous and thorough discussion of a pivotal political topic.Pub Date: July 31, 2023
ISBN: 9798218236663
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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