Important documentation of how mechanisms favored by the 1 percent increase global inequalities.
Sharply observed descent into the labyrinth of finance and semantics with which nations and the superrich secure their wealth.
Abrahamian unravels the opaque world of “special economic zones” and other places she terms “legal fictions,” where national and economic boundaries are blurred. She examines “how consultants, lawyers, financiers, and other mercenaries have carved out physical and virtual space above, below, and between nations.” Her research entailed travel to places that “are a product of colonialism, capitalism, technology, megalomania, and a pinch of alchemy,” including remote regions of Laos (economically co-opted by China) and an “open” Norwegian settlement near the North Pole. Other areas she investigates are the wide use in shipping of deceptive flags of convenience and likely future struggles over asteroid mining and ownership of space. Her focus begins appropriately with Geneva, where she grew up, termed a “City of Holes” for its legendary discretion, “a kind of black hole straddling globalization and regulation," forever marked by the “steep moral cost” of its financial complicity with the Nazis during World War II. She describes the Geneva Freeport warehouse as an example of actual physical spaces not fully subject to state controls, “essentially a legal hack” with a clear role in hiding artworks for the rich to evade taxes. Other chapters examine how Western financial interests promoted “free-trade zones” in remote nations like Mauritius, noting, “This made it profitable for American firms to seek out manufacturing opportunities abroad rather than making products in the U.S., where labor cost more.” Abrahamian also considers trendy concepts like “charter cities,” noting, “To cede this territory to rigidly ideological capitalists alone would be a big mistake.” Her well-researched, engrossing work manages the minutiae of several fields, including telecommunications, maritime law, and fine art, to stitch together a multilayered tale of how privilege works to protect itself.
Important documentation of how mechanisms favored by the 1 percent increase global inequalities.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9780593329856
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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