A well-written commentary on one of the most pressing social issues of our time.
A former Obama strategist reflects on the state of modern media.
In the book’s introduction, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick describes Slaby as “one of the geniuses behind” President Barack Obama’s “then-revolutionary digital [campaign] strategy.” As the Obama campaign’s deputy digital director in 2008 and chief integration and innovation officer in 2012, Slaby oversaw “dozens of digital firsts” by a presidential candidate, including the first Facebook and Twitter accounts. Slaby, at the forefront of digital politics, is uniquely positioned to provide insights into the shifting landscape of media in the 21st century, which not only propelled Obama into office, but also spawned the tea party movement, exacerbated political divisions, and facilitated the mass dissemination of disinformation. Combining erudite analyses of social theories, such as Jurgen Habermas’ notion of the public sphere, with an accessible, occasionally witty, writing style, the author emphasizes the major paradox of today’s media systems and technologies that “are ostensibly meant to connect us” yet excel at providing “increasingly isolated sets of information.” After providing a convincing narrative on “Broken Promises” of modern media, where “popularity masquerades as credibility, and credibility seems like a function of little more than repetition,” the second half of the book provides practical solutions to reform both the media we consume as well as American civic life in general. A protégé of Obama, Slaby is relentlessly optimistic even while acknowledging the contemporary cesspool of new media platforms and the failures of traditional media outlets, and the book successfully blends sophisticated analysis with an uplifting, engaging message. Though some may question the author’s confidence in the general public’s ability to discern fact from fiction, they will still find plenty of pragmatic solutions.
A well-written commentary on one of the most pressing social issues of our time.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63331-051-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Disruption Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.
A deeply informed critique of the malicious initiatives currently using gender as a political tool to arouse fear and strengthen political and religious institutions.
In their latest book, following The Force of Nonviolence, Butler, the noted philosopher and gender studies scholar, documents and debunks the anti-gender ideology of the right, the core principle of which is that male and female are natural categories whose recognition is essential for the survival of the family, nations, and patriarchal order. Its proponents reject “sex” as a malleable category infused with prior political and cultural understandings. By turning gender into a “phantasmatic scene,” they enable those in positions of authority to deflect attention from such world-destroying forces as war, predatory capitalism, and climate change. Butler explores the ideology’s presence in the U.S., the U.K., Uganda, and Hungary, countries where legislation has limited the rights of trans and homosexual people and denied them their sexual identity. The author also delves into the ideology’s roots among Evangelicals and the Catholic Church and such political leaders as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. Butler is particularly bothered by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), who treat trans women as “male predators in disguise.” For the author, “the gap between the perceived or lived body and prevailing social norms can never be fully closed.” They imagine “a world where the many relations to being socially embodied that exist become more livable” and calls for alliances across differences and “a radical democracy informed by socialist values.” Butler compensates for the thinness of some of their recommendations with an astute dissection of the ideology’s core ideas and impressive grasp of its intellectual pretensions. This is a wonderfully thoughtful and impassioned book on a critically important centerpiece of contemporary authoritarianism and patriarchy.
A master class in how gender has been weaponized in support of conservative values and authoritarian regimes.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780374608224
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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
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