A must-read about the power of artistry over overt oppression.
A masterwork about forms of self-expression during the times of chattel slavery.
The National Museum of African American History & Culture and Smithsonian Books have produced what should be considered the definitive text for understanding Black people’s cultural contributions to world history and how the systemic implementation of slavery throughout the globe was and still is one of the key reasons for a significant amount of artifact conception and creation. Having over 30 contributors who proficiently speak to the horrors of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, this masterpiece identifies how racially based atrocities and repulsive business decisions perilously affected millions of people in the United States, Brazil, England, South Africa, the Congo, and the many other countries involved with chattel slavery and its ramifications. Museum curators, experts, and academics contributed concise, informative, and limpidly written essays for this expertly produced anthology, which is as much a feat of graphic design as a spectacular work of nonfiction, mixing in its pages artistry, history, and personal testimony through a variety of visual, written, and aural narrative techniques. The book presents photographs of paintings, portraits, poetry, drawings, pottery, ironworks, tapestries and quilts, maps, jewelry, clothing, architecture, and more—all of which tell both the individual story of each creative person who produced the artifact and the collective story of the oppressed peoples who needed an outlet to express both their pain and their hope for a better future. The reader senses a certain catharsis from the writers themselves as they finally have an opportunity to tell the stories behind these moments of creative genius, whether they stemmed from a need for self-expression or religious epiphany or archival purpose or abject protest; the contributors, in other words, write from a place of sympathy and empathy, sadness and joy, adoration and awe. The book, thus, is “a living archive,” evidencing the freedoms found through inventive expression and illustrating how slavery, though no longer legally in existence, is embedded in the fabric of history and has left an indelible and tragic mark on all of humanity.
A must-read about the power of artistry over overt oppression.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781588347794
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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