An earnest, biblically informed critique of racism that will appeal to a Christian readership.
Bonner confronts and analyzes racism and white supremacy through the lens of Scripture.
The author, a Black pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, makes use of biblical references and quotes from other thinkers to make familiar points about the dangers of bigotry, racial segregation, and white supremacism. He describes ways in which white supremacist concepts enchant their adherents by making them feel superior to their neighbors, and notes that even those who don’t subscribe to such ideas may be averse to talking about bigotry and the effects of slavery: “A common thought about slavery by those who don’t want to discuss racism is that it was a long time ago, and there is nothing that we can do about it now.” Nevertheless, he asserts that it’s imperative to have frank conversations on such subjects to search for common ground. He refers to this process as “restorative harmony”: recreating balance in the world by risking present-day stability to make future improvements. He calls for readers to break down social barriers by pursuing friendships with people unlike themselves and argues that notions of colorblindness or a “post-racial” America are signs of complacency, or merely an illusion in a society whose power structures are firmly grounded in white supremacist ideology. He also makes a case for financial reparations for descendants of the enslaved, arguing that slavery played a profound role in transforming the United States into an economic juggernaut. Bonner also touches on contemporary examples of police brutality and the impact such incidents have had on Black people. Overall, the book’s heavy reliance on direct quotes from famous figures and appeals to authority may make it difficult for readers to discern the author’s voice from those of the thinkers that have inspired him. However, the key ideas in the book are standard talking points in contemporary progressive Christian theological writing; they’re likely to be well-received by a readership already attune to mainline Protestant social teaching, and, to that end, the book is arranged for church discussion groups with review questions at the end of each chapter.
An earnest, biblically informed critique of racism that will appeal to a Christian readership.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 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
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
