An authoritative overview of Pope Francis’ challenge to American hegemony.
A Roman Catholic journalist surveys the diplomatic agenda of Pope Francis in this political book.
Since the United States colonization of the Catholic-majority Philippines, writes Gaetan, the U.S.–Vatican relationship has been defined by “mutual skepticism between empires with deeply divergent worldviews.” Even when there have been moments of public cooperation, such as President Ronald Reagan’s partnership with Pope John Paul II in the Polish Solidarity movement, the Vatican’s refusal to “defer to the American view” of international relations has consistently defined their relationship. Even more than his predecessors, Pope Francis has vocally challenged America’s moral standing on issues that range from climate change and immigration to global finance and international arms deals. And though President Barack Obama’s relationship with the pontiff was “largely respectful,” the author describes a clandestine intelligence campaign spearheaded by the U.S. to discredit Jorge Bergoglio in the years preceding his becoming Pope Francis. But it was during President Donald Trump’s administration when Washington’s previously hushed critiques of the Vatican came to the fore. In particular, Senior Counselor to the President Steve Bannon (a paradoxical “thrice-divorced” traditional Catholic) launched a multimillion-dollar tour of European capitals and a right-wing media blitz to discredit Pope Francis. While the American establishment’s distrust of the Vatican is well covered in this engaging narrative, what makes this book special is its disclosure of the “behind-the-scenes” and “discreet” diplomatic actions of Pope Francis in China, Africa, and Eastern Europe that reveal the chasm of differences that exists between American and Vatican foreign policy. In a series of case studies of specific, 21st-century international conflicts, Gaetan convincingly demonstrates the pope’s keen diplomatic talents that effectively exploited “America’s loss of prestige” to pursue “alternative solutions” to world peace. As an international correspondent for the National Catholic Registerand contributor to Foreign Affairs, the author blends his expertise of geopolitics with access to the Vatican’s inner circles. This is an impressively well-researched book that features interviews with leading diplomatic insiders as well as information from the U.S. and Vatican archives. Though perhaps unnecessarily ad hominemin its barbs against the pope’s right-wing critics, this work delivers a superb analysis of his often unheralded diplomacy.
An authoritative overview of Pope Francis’ challenge to American hegemony.Pub Date: July 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5381-5014-6
Page Count: 476
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 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
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