Merits a place in the small but rich library devoted to the peoples of Siberia and the Arctic, reminiscent at times of V.K....
A graceful, moving story of cultures in collision—and concord—in the far north.
Chukchi writer Rytkheu, a native of the Chukotka region of far northeastern Siberia, is well known in Europe but new to American audiences. Influenced by Gogol and other classic Russian writers, he presents a matter-of-fact, sometimes almost ethnographic account of a conflict between outside and indigenous cultures, set in the early 20th century. The crew of a Canadian vessel, trapped in Arctic ice, set off dynamite in an effort to break the ship free; one unfortunate crewman, John MacLennan, is badly wounded in the attempt. “They should have waited a bit,” remarks a Chukchi who happens on the scene. “A south wind coming.” The reluctant captain decides to offload the wounded sailor in hope of getting him to a Russian hospital, though John is sure that he’s in for a bad time with “these savages”: “Their faces don’t inspire my trust. These people are just too unsavory-looking. Unwashed and uneducated.” As it happens, Rytkheu’s Chukchi know a thing or two about the healing arts, and soon a shaman is on the job, though John is distressed at losing certain body parts. (“ ‘What’s he wailing about?’ she inquired of Orvo.” “ ‘Crying over his hands,’ said the old man.” “ ‘Understandable,’ the shaman-woman nodded.”) Recovering, nursing his self-pity, John wonders whether he will ever be able to show himself among his own people again, even as his generous hosts do what they can to make him feel at home. As other outsiders come and go in ever increasing numbers, cultural misunderstandings ensue, while an ever-evolving John, formerly certain that his hosts were cannibals, is now inclined to think, with his Chukchi friend and benefactor Orvo, that “the less we come into contact with the white man’s world, the better.”
Merits a place in the small but rich library devoted to the peoples of Siberia and the Arctic, reminiscent at times of V.K. Arseniev’s classic Dersu the Trapper and at others of James Houston’s memorable White Dawn.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9749680-7-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Archipelago
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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