A provocative volume that challenges humanity to correct its runaway course toward an increasingly violent future by...
Notable contemporary thinkers and creators give their individual perspectives in this compelling look at violence.
The project started in 2015 when journalist Lennard interviewed political philosopher and critical theorist Evans (Political Violence/Univ. of Bristol; Liberal Terror, 2013, etc.) for the New York Times philosophy blog The Stone. The resulting feature, “Thinking Against Violence,” was published in December 2015 and received widespread attention and discussion. The authors soon expanded on the theme, launching an ongoing successful series on violence that ran through 2016 in the same section, with Lennard and Evans picking the brains of scores of academic authorities and philosophers, including, among others, philosopher Richard J. Bernstein, Nicholas Mirzoeff, and Simona Forti. Later, the series found renewed life in the Los Angeles Book Review, where the authors broadened the scope to include an even wider range of creative minds, including filmmaker Oliver Stone, South African musician and composer Neo Muyanga, and adult performer Mickey Mod. With a quest to “learn how to undo violence,” the authors compiled what they describe as “a series of conversations as a truly trans-disciplinary mediation with artists, writers and cultural producers that brings critical thought to bear on violence.” Often nodding to the pioneering groundwork of German philosopher Hannah Arendt, the book—a diverse compendium of 28 leading voices on the topic of violence—runs the gamut of themes, from violence in media and film to sex, gender, and race in the escalating age of violence. Other discussions include bullying and torture, war and terrorism, dangers of the normalization of violence, the influence of the digital age, climate degradation as a violent crime against humanity, and the important role ignorance plays in the perpetuation of violence. Other contributors include Elaine Scarry, Tom McCarthy, Moira Weigel, and Adrian Parr.
A provocative volume that challenges humanity to correct its runaway course toward an increasingly violent future by learning from its violent past.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-87286-754-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: City Lights
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
