An insightful yet plodding critique of faddish trends.
A journalist questions the shoddy research and pseudoscientific claims of “popular behavioral science.”
With their promises of improving individuals’ lives, recent thought leaders hyping quick-fix behavioral science concepts have gained undeserved recognition. Even though their findings are misleading, writes New York magazine contributing writer Singal, they are still “frequently being adopted by schools, corporations, and nonprofits eager to embrace the Next Big Thing to come out of the labs and lecture halls of Harvard or the University of Pennsylvania.” Sadly, “this replication crisis has cast a giant shadow over the entire field of psychology.” In his debut book, the author explores a variety of relevant topics: the positive thinking and self-esteem craze that took root with The Power of Positive Thinking, I’m OK—You’re OK, and other similar books, which explored “the principle that people have deep psychic wounds that need to be addressed before they can fully actualize themselves”; Princeton political scientist John DiIulio’s faulty theory of “superpredators,” which suggested that certain juvenile criminals (most often young Black teens) are impulsively and remorselessly willing to commit violent crimes; what body language and posture can reveal about assertiveness and how “power posing” can elevate external and internal signals of confidence. Though Singal’s broad-reaching exposé is well documented, the less-than-compelling narrative fails to convey the significance of the issues. The author builds his often pedantic arguments on long stretches of accumulated research findings, citing seemingly every applicable study (more rigorous editing would have helped). Singal rightly points out the virtues of Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All (2018). However, whereas that book was a masterful takedown of the philanthropic elite that showcased the author’s sharp storytelling skills, this book lacks a similarly engaging voice. The result is a well-researched but long-winded exercise.
An insightful yet plodding critique of faddish trends.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-23980-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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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