For those wondering what happened to America between 2017 and 2021, Schiff offers a key firsthand account.
A full-throated denunciation of Donald Trump and his congressional enablers.
Every small-d democratic institution in America was threatened during Trump’s years in the White House. But as Schiff notes, “no institution suffered more under the Trump presidency than Congress, which saw its oversight powers emasculated and its impeachment power rendered obsolete.” The problem was that much of the damage was “self-inflicted” by members of the GOP, a party that has “become an antitruth, antidemocratic cult organized around the former president.” That Schiff was a leading Trump critic and manager of the first impeachment did not endear him to the president. Though Trump sent an odd signal of admiration by way of Jared Kushner, whom Schiff pegs as a “smooth operator,” the former president spent most of his energies in infantile calumniation, calling the author “Shifty Schiff” and the like. Schiff repaid the attention by assembling a careful case against Trump, one that, Schiff avers, proved the president’s guilt but did not convince enough Republicans that there was a good answer to the questions, “Why should I be the one to remove him? Why should I risk my seat, my position of power and influence, my career and future?...Why should I?” Most of this book, bracketed by horrific scenes from the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol—of which Trump, Schiff insists, was the prime mover—is a long, densely detailed account of the discovery process in the first impeachment trial. It would threaten to become tedious reading, due to all the minutiae, were it not for Schiff’s skill as a storyteller, a skill useful for a trial attorney to have, and for his habit of peppering his narrative with withering assaults on McConnell, Gosar, Barr, et. al. He also offers the revelation that many leading Republicans have urged him in private (while publicly disavowing having said any such thing), “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
For those wondering what happened to America between 2017 and 2021, Schiff offers a key firsthand account.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-23152-4
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© 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.
