The dense doses of Marxist theory will be fairly unapproachable to readers not well-versed with the socialist thinker, but...
Harvey (Anthropology and Geography/CUNY Graduate Center; Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, 2014, etc.) employs the theories of Karl Marx to explain the genesis of political and economic problems in nations relying on private markets.
The author pulls together 11 previously published essays and book chapters to illuminate his self-proclaimed revolutionary views about the failures of capitalism. Although some of the pieces date back decades, Harvey offers contemporary commentary at the end of each. In some instances, he discusses the criticisms aimed at him at the time of original publication and why his critics were mistaken. Previously a professor in Baltimore, Harvey turned to Marx's theories after watching the city partially destruct in the aftermath of race-based violence triggered by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He began to wonder why cities such as Baltimore and Detroit seem healthy but then decline, to the detriment of all residents except those who manage the local wealth. Harvey views capitalism as being in constant crisis, with only the geographic locus shifting. His chapters are grounded in abstractions, but the author provides enough specifics to qualify as case studies of a sort. It is necessary, he writes, to devise fresh frameworks for understanding why and how events unfold the way they do in capitalist nations, such as the financial meltdowns of 2007-2008. The formation of urban ghettos, the destruction of the natural environment, and the uneven distribution of wealth within a populace constitute some of the capitalist disruptions addressed by Harvey through his Marxist worldview. Whether the United States and other nations can afford the consequences stemming from a relentless accumulation of capital constitutes the unifying theme of the chapters, which are not obviously linked at first glance.
The dense doses of Marxist theory will be fairly unapproachable to readers not well-versed with the socialist thinker, but Harvey writes clearly, leading to understanding, albeit only with intense concentration and perhaps multiple readings.Pub Date: March 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-046944-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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 moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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