A defensive but astute, cerebral, and engrossing polemic that conveys knowledge and authority.
The former Greek finance minister argues that the lack of political will and democratic consensus in the euro crisis portends a drift toward authoritarianism.
Having served as finance minister in 2015 during the face-off with the Eurogroup on behalf of Greece—the weakest defaulting European Union member—Varoufakis (Economic Theory/Univ. of Athens; Europe after the Minotaur: Greece and the Future of the Global Economy, 2015, etc.) reaches back into not-so-distant economic history to make a convincing case that the EU is bungling the current debt crisis, especially in regards to the weakest links in the union. The original design for a viable worldwide financial system was hammered out at Bretton Woods by the Allies in July 1944, as D-Day was just getting underway—although, the author notes, the Nazis had first envisioned a European monetary union as early as 1938. The United States pledged to bolster European currencies, a shock-absorbing system already put in place in the U.S. The deal worked until 1971’s “Nixon Shock,” whereby Washington grew exasperated with the recalcitrant Europeans and jettisoned them from the dollar zone. Thus, the Europeans were set adrift to conjure their own Bretton Woods, culminating in the euro, yet without the shock absorbers, causing massive debt default in the crisis of 2008 and prodding “Europe to turn in on itself.” How could this have happened? With scathing humor, Varoufakis portrays the dramatic characters: the deficit-phobic Bundesbank; the exquisitely efficient, autocratic French administrators in Brussels; and the earnest Americans (especially Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner), who warned against “teach[ing] the Greeks a lesson.” Indeed, the lesson posited by this well-read Greek academic is the necessity of respecting the demos lest the beleaguered people “come back to strike at the foundation” of the state. The appendix is an extract from “A Modest Proposal for Resolving the Eurozone Crisis,” which the author co-wrote with Stuart Holland and J.K. Galbraith.
A defensive but astute, cerebral, and engrossing polemic that conveys knowledge and authority.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56858-504-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Nation Books
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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