A well-reasoned treatise on the history of equality in America and how best to secure it in the future.
A timely review of America’s pursuit of equality and pragmatic solutions to better achieve it.
Tsai (Law/American Univ.; America’s Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community, 2014, etc.) argues that to overcome injustice and inequality, we must be open to “second-best solutions” and “workable alternatives” as a matter of constitutional duty to seek common ground. This approach, writes the author, “practical egalitarianism…entails creating a long-term backup plan to deal with recurring situations where we struggle to enforce equality’s demands. Practical egalitarians take seriously the basic idea of civic equality for all.” Yet “equality,” a loaded word with substantial variations in meaning and emphasis, can be tough to pin down. The author clearly understands this conundrum and addresses the issue with appropriate nuance and respect for diverse ideologies, and he argues that gradual and incremental developments can be just as important as massive legal battles, particularly in the advancement of fairness and free speech. Tsai examines how Americans have wrestled with equality throughout history, from slavery to the most recent ban on Muslim travelers, and the lessons we can draw from these struggles. Much of the book offers practical advice for spreading equality in the legal system, but he mostly avoids legalese, delivering his ideas in vivid prose: “Instead of flying higher and higher into theory in a quest for gorgeously rendered concepts that can solve all of our problems at once, our goal should be to immerse ourselves in the squalor of human existence.” Like a battle “waged on multiple fronts,” equality’s advocates must be prepared to “initiate fresh lines of attack.” The author’s intended audience, however, is not entirely clear. The premise inherent in the subtitle will likely find currency among general readers, but the book seems best tailored for policymakers, scholars, jurists, and activists.
A well-reasoned treatise on the history of equality in America and how best to secure it in the future.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-393-65202-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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