Writing with authority and clarity, Matthews weaves disparate events into a bloody tapestry of invasion and resistance.
A respected journalist draws on deep knowledge to explain the thinking behind Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In 1939, Churchill called Russia “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” These words seem truer than ever in the context of the invasion of Ukraine, but Matthews does a solid job of unraveling the story. He is a good person for the task, with several decades of experience covering events in Moscow. He has extensive personal and professional connections in Russia and chronicles his illuminating interviews with numerous Kremlin insiders and senior commentators (in many cases, he does not disclose their names or specific positions). The author focuses on Putin’s decision, aided by his inner circle, to launch the offensive and then, when the planned blitzkrieg failed, to double down for a protracted conflict. In particular, Matthews examines a lengthy 2021 essay in which Putin asserted that Ukraine was historically part of Russia. In Putin’s eyes, he was forced into the invasion by Ukraine’s Westward drift, and NATO’s aid for Ukraine cemented his view. With near-complete control of the media, he has been able to depict Ukrainian defiance and Western support as attacks on Russia’s sovereignty. This is ludicrous, writes Matthews, but Putin believes it, and much of the population apparently agrees with him. This means that Putin cannot afford to lose, and his threat of using nuclear weapons should be taken seriously. Unfortunately, if Putin should fall, his replacements are likely to be even worse, so the West should tread carefully. Matthews believes that, eventually, there will be some sort of settlement—although even the prospect of talks is a long way off, with both sides currently maneuvering for battlefield advantage. Russia’s invasion might be a geopolitical turning point, but it is undeniably a painful one.
Writing with authority and clarity, Matthews weaves disparate events into a bloody tapestry of invasion and resistance.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780008562748
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Mudlark
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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