A vigorous analysis of a pernicious ideology.
An investigation of the perils of neoliberalism.
British journalist and environmental activist Monbiot and filmmaker Hutchison mount a damning, persuasive critique of neoliberalism, an ideology that exalts capitalism and greed. A term coined in 1938 based on the writings of economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and enthusiastically popularized by Milton Friedman, neoliberalism, the authors assert, has caused or contributed to economic inequality; “diseases of despair” such as suicides and overdoses; the erosion of the tax base, resulting in a lack of public funding for health, education, and infrastructure; and the advent of demagogues, such as Viktor Orbán, Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Jair Bolsonaro. These “deeply flawed human beings with oversized egos and pathological insecurities” have been enabled by neoliberal ideologues who promote the mantra that competition, deregulation, and privatization will lead to wealth that will enrich everyone. However, the authors warn, freedom from regulation benefits only the very wealthy, leading to the exploitation and endangerment of workers, environmental damage, and the kinds of “exotic financial instruments” that caused the financial crisis of 2008. “As a general rule,” write the authors, “privatization is legalized theft from the public realm.” Instead of taking responsibility for the endemic problems they cause, neoliberals blame ordinary people for crises. They promote the idea that personal changes can be solutions, urging citizens to recycle while their enterprises loot natural resources. Neoliberalism has coopted both political parties, established influential think tanks, and found supporters in the press. The authors’ argument against neoliberalism includes proposals for change: Campaign finance reform may draw new political actors; local efforts can serve as models for “participatory, deliberative democracy.” “Once roughly 25 percent of the population is committed to change,” they contend, the rest of society will quickly join them.
A vigorous analysis of a pernicious ideology.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780593735152
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
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