An astute, engrossing overview of Macron’s presidency and potential.
A political consultant surveys the career of Emmanuel Macron in this nonfiction work.
As an international political coach, former French diplomat, and author of multiple books on European high politics, Lefebvre is keenly aware of the political complexities of 21st-century Western Europe. Divided thematically in chapters that analyze Macron the “Shapeshifter,” “Reformer,” and “Crisis Manager,” to name a few, the book is part biography of the French president and part political commentary. Significant attention, for instance, is given to his romance with teacher-turned-wife Brigitte as well as its political ramifications, which included a smear campaign by Russian-funded media that was echoed by the French right alleging sexual abuse when Macron was 15 years old. Though described here as a “pragmatist,” Macron is also portrayed in these pages as unafraid to take “bold and dangerous” moves, as when he released a satirical video that went viral mocking President Donald Trump and entitled “Let’s Make the Planet Great Again.” Shortly after, Macron continued to goad Trump, confronting him at the G7 Summit with a “tense” handshake that he subsequently described to the French press as “a moment of truth” that signaled he “will not make small concessions.” Admittedly, this book was written before the 2022 French presidential runoffs and was published “in the middle” of Macron’s political career. While the outcome of the 2022 presidential election is still unknown, the work sees Macron as the titular “prototype for a new generation of world leaders.” As in any political narrative, Lefebvre writes, this story needs “bad guys,” and the “villains” here are right-wing populists, from Trump in America to Marine Le Pen in France and a host of “extreme-right” politicians on the rise in Hungary, Poland, and across the European Union. Written in an accessible prose for American audiences unfamiliar with the nuances of French domestic politics, this book effectively balances engagement with the general public with an erudite appraisal that will appeal to scholars and politicians familiar with European affairs. While a bit fawning at times, the work is nevertheless generally convincing in its political analysis.
An astute, engrossing overview of Macron’s presidency and potential.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-59211-145-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Gaudium
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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