Not every citizen will read this book, but we’d be better off if a good many did.
A veteran of the bench hands down sobering judgments about the U.S. judicial system.
We want to think that when we have our day in court, justice will be served. In this debut collection of essays, Rakoff, drawing on two-plus decades of experience as a federal judge, suggests otherwise, describing a system “beset by hypocritical pretentions, conundrums, paradoxes, and shortcomings.” Our courts, he argues, function differently than how the Founding Fathers intended, contrary to what is portrayed in the media and in opposition to the notions of most Americans. The author comes at his topic from varying angles, arguing that eyewitness testimony is dubious; the death penalty is far from error-free (and more expensive than incarceration); and the amazing forensics portrayed on TV shows are not necessarily based on reliable science. Saliently, he also shows that many accused enter into pleas in which prosecutors hold all the cards, and a compelling minihistory of Chief Justice John Marshall illustrates how his court set the standard for a judicial system “more deferential to the executive branch…than to the legislative branch,” the echoes of which are heard today. Some of these pieces began as articles in the New York Review of Books and remain in that style. Although Rakoff sometimes uses unnecessarily dense language—e.g., “the future deterrent value of successfully prosecuting individuals far outweighs the prophylactic benefits of imposing compliance measures that are often little more than window-dressing”—a law degree is not required to follow the narrative, which never slips into screed. As the author makes clear, our justice system affects all of us. We pay dearly—financially and otherwise—when people are imprisoned falsely or for longer than they should be. In addition to laying out the flaws, Rakoff offers practical solutions. Even if you do not agree with his answers, it’s hard to refute his case that we have serious problems that deserve attention.
Not every citizen will read this book, but we’d be better off if a good many did.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-28999-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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