An optimistic and often enthralling book of advocacy for environmental justice.
A treatise on the current environmental crisis by committed attorney.
This timely, expanded second edition of van Rossum’s 2017 brief for environmental reform contains extra chapters and forewords by actor and activist Mark Ruffalo and Kerri Evelyn Harris, former candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware. In it, van Rossum takes a strong personal and professional stand against corporations’ profiting from exploitation of natural resources. From the start, she draws on numerous anecdotes to make her points, such as a visit she made to her late mother’s forested property in Central Pennsylvania, during which she heard that oil companies were buying up surrounding property, and the story of one of the nation’s most polluted elementary schools, in Manchester, Texas. Van Rossum uses these accounts to advocate for protective “constitutional environmental rights”—or “Green Amendments”—in every state’s constitution. The author combines experts’ evaluations with historical context and personal tales from her decades of nonprofit work to paint a clear picture of where the nation stands. And the verdict of this research is critical: More people die annually from pollution than from war, she points out, citing a report from United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. National laws often accommodate corporations, she asserts, despite evidence of their contributions to the environmental crisis. Fracking, gas pipelines, and overdevelopment are all shown to bear deadly consequences. For van Rossum, however, there’s hope. While addressing counterarguments and economic fears, the author insists that “Democracy will reign, our natural environments will be protected, and our economies will grow and prosper.” In this convincing argument for environmental reform, she presents complex principles in lay terms, and a concluding chapter that will likely encourage many readers to take concrete action in favor of the Green Amendments; it not only provides specifics on how each state amends its constitution but also offers practical ways to get other people enthusiastic about the cause. The volume can sometimes be repetitive, but van Rossum expertly balances science, law, and an engaging narrative to convey an urgent need for reform.
An optimistic and often enthralling book of advocacy for environmental justice.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63331-064-3
Page Count: 365
Publisher: Disruption Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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