A lucid and provocative look at the geopolitics of energy and the shifts and dislocations it is likely to produce.
Remember when the world was running out of oil? The good news is that energy is abundant, at least for the time being. As for the bad news….
The era of peak oil has peaked. In just the last decade, writes O’Sullivan (Practice of International Affairs/Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univ.; Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism, 2003, etc.), “developments in the world of energy have unfolded at breakneck speed,” such that fracking, digitally wrought efficiencies, and other advances, combined with reductions in demand, have changed the political stage. For one thing, writes the author, the Arab oil-producing nations have lost some of their hold as the U.S. has emerged as an energy exporter—though, as she adds, that picture is complicated by the fact that the U.S. also imports fossil fuels. Its supremacy as a producer also puts Russia in a leading role, especially in any European scenario. For its part, Europe’s conventional oil production is projected to fall, while shale gas extraction is forbidden in many places, so that net imports will almost certainly rise within the next two decades. O’Sullivan’s projections largely hinge on the fossil fuel economy, and though she does figure renewables into the mix, there are times when she seems to give too little attention to externalities—the effects, say, of that shale extraction on water, forcing competition for resources in other directions. Even so, her argument offers intriguing possibilities. “The new energy abundance,” she writes, “provides grounds for recasting ties between the United States and China,” increasing energy trading while easing the conflict narrative that has been dominant recently, changing it to “one of potential and actual cooperation around energy.” How all this will play out in the current political setting, given the threat of trade and other wars, remains to be seen, but O’Sullivan’s generally optimistic view of “energy realities” merits attention.
A lucid and provocative look at the geopolitics of energy and the shifts and dislocations it is likely to produce.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0793-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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