A sharp analysis that is bound to be widely discussed, with all the usual suspects, depending on their politics, lining up...
A best-selling anti-globalization activist and author argues that surviving the climate emergency will require radical changes in how we live.
The time for marginal fixes has expired, writes Klein (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 2007, etc.). We will not be saved by toothless international agreements, spurious political bargains, outlandish geoengineering environmental groups in bed with corporations or magical thinking of any kind—and surely not by deregulating the capitalist system responsible for the crisis. Carbon emissions continue to rise, and greenhouse gases dangerously accumulate as the fossil fuel industry ramps up devastating extraction. In part, Klein’s narrative is a personal story about her own awakening to and increasing engagement with the climate issue. But this always-interesting polemic is built mostly on her interviews with experts, environmentalists and activists and her colorful on-site reporting from various international meetings and conferences and particularly from worldwide pockets of resistance to corporate bullying. “Blockadia,” she calls these places, where communities have risen to oppose open-pit mining, fracking and pipelines. In them she finds hope for a grass-roots rebellion, a kind of “People’s Shock” where push back against the aggressive energy industry can be a catalyst for advancing a range of policies dear to the progressive agenda. Klein has no time for deniers of man-made global warming, but she credits right-wing ideologues with better understanding the high stakes, the vast scope of the changes necessary to meet the climate challenge. This awareness accounts for their vigorous opposition to the activists’ docket and for the movement’s consequent loss of momentum for the past decade. The author’s journalism won’t slow down the fossil fuel companies, but it surely holds out hope for activists looking to avert a disaster, for a widespread people’s movement that, if it happens, “changes everything.”
A sharp analysis that is bound to be widely discussed, with all the usual suspects, depending on their politics, lining up to cheer or excoriate Klein.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1451697384
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
An intimate and provocative glimpse into the lives of adolescent schoolgirls at two West Coast middle schools by journalist Orenstein (formerly managing editor of Mother Jones). Orenstein was motivated by the disturbing findings of a 1990 study from the American Association of University Women. It revealed that girls' self-esteem plummets as they reach adolescence, with a concomitant drop in academic achievement- -especially in math and science. By sixth grade, both boys and girls have learned to equate masculinity with opportunity and assertiveness and femininity with reserve and restraint. In her attempt to delve more deeply into this phenomenon, Orenstein observed and interviewed dozens of young girls inside and outside their classrooms. The resulting narratives are likely to move and vex readers. The classrooms at Weston Middle School ring with the symptoms: Even girls who consider themselves feminists tend to ``recede from class proceedings'' while their male classmates vociferously respond to teachers' questions; girls who are generally outspoken remain silent in the classroom. When probed, they tell Orenstein that they are afraid of having the wrong answer and of being embarrassed. They are not willing to take the risks that boys routinely take. The girls are overly involved with their appearance, with clothes and beauty products, instead of their studies. Sexual desirability becomes the central component of their self-image, with negative feelings often translating themselves into eating disorders. At the Audubon Middle School, with its predominantly minority population, it is apparent that ``the consequences of silence and marginalization for Latinas are especially dire.'' The Latina girls we meet often become gang members and mothers, while school becomes increasingly irrelevant. A comprehensive bibliography and annotated notes enhance Orenstein's ardent and significant exploration of the adolescent roots of key women's issues. (First serial to the New York Times Magazine)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42575-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
In the latest leg of an idiosyncratic intellectual journey, Pellegrino looks at the stories of the Old Testament through the lenses of genetics, paleontology, and archaeology. Pellegrino (Unearthing Atlantis, 1990, etc.) has an autodidact's omnivorous curiosity to match his high-flying imagination. In this new hodgepodge, he expands on the speculations he put forward in his previous expedition into antiquity, in which he hypothesized that the volcano-buried Minoan city of Thera was the inspiration for the legendary Atlantis. Here he conjectures that when an eruption in the second millennium b.c. obliterated the Minoan civilization, its long-distance effects may have been responsible for the plagues of Egypt and the Aegean diaspora that brought the Philistines to Canaan. He also annexes other theories having to do with the contentious ``Mitochondrial Eve'' hypothesis (based on mitochondrial DNA research, it theorizes that genetic the mother of us all lived between 250,000 and 140,000 b.c.) and the Ark of the Covenant's wanderings. Using diverse scientific sources and historical perspectives—Sumerian clay tablets, Egyptian steles, the writings of Herodotus, and, naturally, the Bible—he ``telescopes'' anthropological and archaeological theories to fit Biblical myths like those of Noah and Nimrod, compressing patterns of history into oral tradition's legends. With a natural sense of storytelling, he blends theories of antiquity with the adventures of field work: He is best describing the modern difficulties of conducting digs in Gaza, Jericho, and Iraq (where he radically situates the Biblical Cities of the Plain destroyed by God's wrath). There is, however, a good deal of padding by this accidental archaeologist: reconstructed dialogue, digression, repetition, and flights of fancy that leave solid ground far below. For all its interdisciplinary breadth and originality, this reads like a beery breeze-shooting session with a college prof. (16 pages of b&w drawings, maps, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40006-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
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