A secondary source primer that simply, but fairly, reworks previous analyses and critiques.
An Eastern writer describes, analyzes and critiques Western sociologists, thinkers and philosophers from the past and present.
Mohan’s book provides an overview of ideas, beliefs, concepts and theories from some of the most prominent sociological thinkers of the Western world. The summaries of each thinker’s ideas are presented clearly enough, but sometimes the coverage is uneven. The author is unabashed when stating Marx’s prominent place in such texts and offers Marx much more coverage than Durkheim, Comte, Weber and Parsons. Relative contemporaries, such as Mills and Goffman, are given even less attention. It is apparent that theorists such as Freud and Jung are covered less since their realm is more psychological, but the disproportionate coverage of the sociologists seems arbitrary. But considering the number of thinkers covered, this variation of coverage becomes acceptable. The descriptions of thought are often followed by Mohan’s evaluation of that thought, but the evaluations are not significantly distinguished from the descriptions, which makes it occasionally hard to differentiate between strict interpretation of a specific sociologist and Mohan’s impressions of that sociologist. The reader might also be at a loss to determine the context and validity of any such evaluation since the author doesn’t seem to be formally trained in sociology (cited references and notes are from secondary sources and not the sociologists’ original works). The text is occasionally punctuated by some quirky, if not odd, comments, such as Parsons not being able to make it to heaven. This quirkiness, however, is not necessarily a drawback. The many cartoons and caricatures throughout the book underscore the author’s intellectual but wry approach. The suggested audience of reviewers of sociological thought or philosophy is fair enough, especially for those more interested in abstract writing. Mohan often offers concrete examples for such abstractions, but the text’s intention is not modern-day empiricism. Discussion of recent research is not included, so readers interested in this aspect might be better served with various academic texts.
A secondary source primer that simply, but fairly, reworks previous analyses and critiques.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2007
ISBN: 978-1419683244
Page Count: 284
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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