A spirited, useful, and thought-provoking manual that “teaches the powerful about their power.”
A guide offers a wide-ranging look at the state and changing nature of negotiation as a discipline.
In these pages, Federman seeks to explore a comprehensive and modern understanding of the art of negotiation, particularly as seen through the lens of modern sensibilities. “New understandings of transgenerational trauma, marginality, and structural oppression remain largely unaddressed in the negotiation field,” she writes. “This book adds peacebuilding wisdom to negotiation while showing how those working for social transformation can benefit from negotiation training.” One of the key figures working for social transformation in the book is the former convict and bestselling author of The Master Plan (2019), Chris Wilson, who “created his life vision and then repeatedly requested that the judge reduce his life sentence.” Wilson worked with a nonprofit to revitalize Baltimore neighborhoods. Federman likewise concentrates on the hard realities of life in Baltimore’s inner city in order to ground her concept of “transformative negotiation,” which means “striving for freedom from disenfranchisement, whether that shows up as debt, illness, and/or demeaning environments.” To help readers engage with her core concepts, the author regularly includes interactive sections, such as asking the audience to answer discussion questions. Throughout the manual, Federman is an energetic and engaging guide to the very personal, uplifting side of negotiation and the ways that various forms of the discipline can change individual lives. “Negotiation skills help you get somewhere,” she writes. “You decide where.” Discussing the tactics of transformative negotiation, she vividly dramatizes how to “negotiate for time, recognition, freedom, space, and physical security.” At every turn in her book, she takes the whole subject of negotiation out of the corporate boardroom and very effectively situates it squarely in the world of everyday people.
A spirited, useful, and thought-provoking manual that “teaches the powerful about their power.”Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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