An empowering but sometimes overly idealistic approach to civil conversations.
A guide to elevating political discourse in America.
Finley and Henderson, co-founders of the Great Lakes Civility Project, aim to open minds and inspire respectful political discussions in this actionable guide. This pair of “professional rivals and polar opposites” met in 2011 while covering a political conference for different Detroit newspapers. Their unlikely but enduring friendship prompted them to spread the gospel of civility, which they define as “having conversations about things you disagree on without letting hate enter into the equation.” They argue that incivility is threatening our democracy and has resulted in Democrats and Republicans being cast as “two armies competing for total dominance.” To shift the country’s course, Finley and Henderson propose four pillars of civility: “dropping assumptions,” “setting honest goals,” “active listening,” and “coming back.” They believe that most people’s opinions are formed similarly: by taking the available information and running it through a filter of values and personal experiences. Rather than viewing conversations as an opportunity to compete with or convert others, the authors advise aiming for authentic connection instead. Finley and Henderson encourage readers to start wherever they have agency and take it “one conversation, one relationship, one community at a time.” The guide offers readers an optimistic blueprint for restoring respectful political dialogue, and the book’s greatest strength is the authors’ embodiment of this approach; they truly walk the walk of the civility they preach. They include persuasive statistics throughout the book to support their arguments, and continually prompt readers to self-reflect with questions like, “What is the benefit of holding assumptions about other people and their beliefs?” However, their approach’s premise relies on all parties adhering to ground rules, such as “Everyone involved in the conversation must agree that it is a safe zone.” The book also seems to naively imply that good-faith conversations are sufficient to repair deep, structural flaws in the political system.
An empowering but sometimes overly idealistic approach to civil conversations.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9780814352182
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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