A brief but significant book that should be in the hands of anyone concerned about the nation's political future.
A notable contribution to the debate about how to reduce the appeal of “pathological populisms” while holding out hope of success in doing so.
As a leading political scientist, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, and former president of the American Political Science Association, Smith’s credentials are impressive. In his latest book, parts of which were presented as part of the Castle Lectures at Yale, he explores how illiberal nationalism can be fought and reconciled to more humane, positive, and optimistic views of human potential and collective existence. In a narrative wide in perspective and rich in context, Smith makes two main points. First, he makes a case for the central importance to a people’s understanding of themselves of the stories they tell about the nations, tribes, and other groups of which they’re members—their “peoplehood.” Regarding the second, which is Smith’s freshest contribution, he argues for the importance of the kinds of stories he believes to be the most effective in energizing and sustaining a population in generous solidarity with each other against the “conservative nationalist political movements and religious traditionalists” who cling to “core, essential identities” in a changing world. “The simple, familiar siren songs of populist nationalisms” should be countered by “the development of more positive, more egalitarian, and inclusive stories of national peoplehood.” What makes a good story of peoplehood? Smith argues that it must be “expressive of [a people’s] identities and interests as well as their ideals” and “resonant, respectful” and arranged to withstand change over time. He then proposes three strong candidates for fitting stories of American nationhood and comes down on the side of Lincoln’s version of the Declaration of Independence as the richest and most enduring.
A brief but significant book that should be in the hands of anyone concerned about the nation's political future.Pub Date: June 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-22939-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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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