by William J. Dobson ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 5, 2012
A pertinent work of journalistic research that will gain fresh meaning as authoritarian regimes both evolve and fall.
A fluid study of how heavy-handed repression by authoritarian regimes has given way to more subtle forms of control.
Despite some reassuring advances in democracy over the last 40 years, from the collapse of dictatorships in Latin America, East Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and recent progress since last year’s Arab Spring, Slate foreign affairs editor Dobson sees a pernicious, no-less-repressive shift in the tactics of autocrats still hanging on. Old-style authoritarian regimes have given way to modern dictators who “work in the more ambiguous spectrum that exists between democracy and authoritarianism”—e.g., in Russia and China. In chapters that treat the newfangled dictatorial styles of these leaders (e.g., “The Czar” refers to Vladimir Putin; “The Pharaoh” to Hosni Mubarak) alternating with chapters on the increasingly savvy forces working against them (“The Opposition” and “The Youth”), Dobson travels around the globe, from Malaysia to Venezuela, chronicling his encounters with both camps. The tools of the dictator have always involved centralization of power, and for the modern autocrat no less, especially control of TV and newspapers. They are also more careful now not to upset the sense of political apathy, “the grease that helps any authoritarian system hum.” While Putin carefully maintains stability and order to keep his grip, Hugo Chávez of Venezuela cultivates popular chaos, stacking all government institutions with supporters so that he has amassed “unchecked executive power.” Besides speaking with plenty of brainwashed supporters of these regimes, Dobson sought out activists in the political opposition who have bravely endured terror and intimidation.
A pertinent work of journalistic research that will gain fresh meaning as authoritarian regimes both evolve and fall.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-53335-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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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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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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