More drab than the subject needs, but a cleareyed overview of the modern interaction of culture and politics.
A look at the intersection of politics and art during our most recent annus horribilis.
Two Republicans recently in office, Trump and Reagan, came to politics by way of show business, “not anomalies but products of a political mindset that saw entertainment as one of the levers that generated populist political power.” Democrats have been a touch more sanguine about the political uses of the entertainment industry, but as Goldberg notes, the industry has generally tilted their way. Still, culture often leads politics. The author takes as a prime example the way in which TV shows such as Will & Grace, Ellen, and Modern Family helped place LGBTQ+ issues in the mainstream and enhance public acceptance of gay marriage. Before Trump, he notes, only one TV entertainment program, the Jon Stewart–helmed Daily Show, centered on politics; with Trump, nearly every such show took up political discourse. Meanwhile, stars such as Taylor Swift, who had been carefully apolitical—and, Goldberg notes, had become an unwitting idol of the neo-Nazi movement—before, rose in opposition to Trump and his base. “For many artists, Trump’s victory reflected a broad and sinister authoritarian agenda,” writes the author, and the result was an outpouring of productions such as the series rendering of Philip Roth’s novel The Plot Against America. Trump bloviated via Twitter about the array of entertainers and culture influencers lined up against him—many, like Swift, inspired to take up rhetorical arms against his agenda thanks merely to his awfulness: Fran Drescher, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Legend, and numerous others all made a stand, even as Trump got worse and worse. Goldberg’s text often plods, more dutiful than rapt, as he enumerates those against Trump (and few pro, mostly has-beens like Scott Baio). One thing’s for sure: The One America News Network crew will be more sure than ever that Hollywood is a leftist cabal.
More drab than the subject needs, but a cleareyed overview of the modern interaction of culture and politics.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61775-979-6
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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