Accessible, well-written approach to both Galbraith’s life and the larger issues to which he has so effectively devoted his...
by Richard Parker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2005
A fittingly oversized life of the eminent economist, philosopher, writer, and diplomat.
John Kenneth Galbraith, now 96, has long been famed for his patrician bearing and PBS-friendly intellectual prowess. Yet, Parker (Kennedy School of Government/Harvard Univ.) writes, Galbraith grew up on an Ontario farm far from any cultural centers and had barely heard of most of the great economic philosophers until arriving at graduate school; thanks to his agricultural background, Galbraith may have been the only New Deal “alphabet agency” appointee capable of keeping up with the sometime farmer John Maynard Keynes on the best way to raise hogs. Yet his domain soon extended well beyond rural policy; as an advisor, informal or formal, to every Democratic president since FDR, Galbraith has been instrumental in shaping much domestic and foreign policy. He also served as JFK’s ambassador to India and, Parker suggests, was in line to become ambassador to the Soviet Union when Kennedy was assassinated, after which he had a most celebrated falling out with Lyndon Johnson and emerged as one of the intellectual left’s most powerful critics of the war in Vietnam. Though scorned by many more number-oriented economists—MIT’s Paul Samuelson once dismissed him as “America’s foremost economist for non-economists”—Galbraith has cast a giant shadow on just about every corner of American public life; he has also been catholic in his criticism, decrying the policies of Bill Clinton as well as those of Richard Nixon and now George W. Bush. Parker ably explores the development of Galbraith’s thought, illuminating some fascinating questions as he does: Why, for instance, did business people once cry foul at government intervention but welcome “a business cycle moderated by ‘business Keynesianism’ ”? How did guns come to coexist with butter, and butter with guns? Whatever happened to the notion of countervailing power, a term that Galbraith so nicely coined—as he did “the affluent society,” “the conventional wisdom,” and other useful handles?
Accessible, well-written approach to both Galbraith’s life and the larger issues to which he has so effectively devoted his thought: an exemplary intellectual biography.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-374-28168-8
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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BOOK REVIEW
by Glennon Doyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2020
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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