Questions remain, but this insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe.
A former journalist in Brazil and Indonesia looks at the global protest movements from 2010 to 2020 and wonders how so many led to the opposite outcomes of what they were demanding.
Bevins, who covered Brazil for the Los Angeles Times and Southeast Asia for the Washington Post, was intimately involved in the Brazilian street protests in 2013, among other events, and he spent four years interviewing people around the world to get a deeper understanding of this “mass protest decade,” beginning in Tunisia in 2011. The author seeks to reveal why the demands were simply repudiated or worse—e.g., military crackdown in Egypt or the election of right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018. Much has been written about the role of social media in spurring a global democratic movement, and there was the tremendous role of Al Jazeera in reporting on the Arab Spring. However, in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere, things went very differently, as Bevins amply demonstrates. Despite initial encouragement in Hong Kong, the crackdown by China has been nearly complete. In Ukraine, the so-called Orange Revolution was successful in kicking the Soviet-backed leader out of Kyiv, yet Russia later invaded. Chile has been perhaps the lone success story. In 2021, Gabriel Boric, “the leader of the 2011 student protests who entered congressional politics in 2013 and signed the ‘peace accord’ in 2019, was elected president” at age 35, famously declaring, “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave.” Particularly incisive is the author’s questioning of protest leaders and other relevant figures about what they would have done differently, in hindsight. Bevins is correct about how little the media understand the Global South, and he shows how “the horizontally structured, digitally coordinated, leaderless mass protest is fundamentally illegible.”
Questions remain, but this insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781541788978
Page Count: 352
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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 familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 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.
