An intelligent chronicle that may have limited appeal among general readers.
An exiled Algerian freedom fighter’s account of the less-than-heroic realities undergirding the Algerian revolution.
In this memoir translated by his widow, Mokhtefi traces his evolution from a young boy steeped in Muslim traditions to a disillusioned government administrator. The son of a butcher, the author grew up in an Algerian village seething with French-Arab tensions. A schoolteacher saw Mokhtefi's intellectual gifts early on and urged him to pursue a scholarship to a school outside of his village. There, he began his assimilation into a French-dominated society he questioned for how it “deprived my parents of an education” and made him feel culturally “mutilated, bouncing back and forth between the traditional family, the village, and my life at the school and in the city.” His political consciousness emerged in high school, and he dreamed of becoming a lawyer to defend Algerian nationalists like his imprisoned brother. As the French military began mobilizing to Algeria, the young Mokhtefi found himself drawn into the murky politics that pitted rival factions of Algerian nationalists against each other. He eventually joined the National Liberation Army and trained to send and receive Morse code among men who “barely [knew] how to read and write.” Eventually promoted to a supervisory position within the signal corps, he continued to witness a toxic “climate of fear and disdain” prevail in the ALN. After accepting an administrative post in the emerging Algerian government, he watched the minister and his cabinet censor all the reports he wrote, and the justice-for-all promises of the revolution turned to ash. This detailed, at times labyrinthine eyewitness account of a revolutionary’s disillusionment with the revolution to free Algeria not only from France, but from its own lack of political enlightenment will appeal most to historians of colonization and students of political movements.
An intelligent chronicle that may have limited appeal among general readers.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63542-180-4
Page Count: 452
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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