A lucid, informative portrait.
A thriving marriage buoys two impressive careers.
Financial journalist Hilsenrath, senior writer for the Wall Street Journal, makes his book debut with a perceptive dual biography of Janet Yellen (b. 1946) and her husband, Nobel laureate George Akerlof (b. 1940). By the time they met in 1977, Yellen had earned a doctorate at Yale, where she was inspired by the “moral passion” of her mentor, James Tobin, and had just left a teaching job at Harvard. Akerlof, coming out of MIT, had taught at Berkeley, was divorced, and, in 1970, had written a transformative 13-page paper, “The Market for ‘Lemons,’ ” which, Hilsenrath notes, “helped open the door for a new branch of research called behavioral economics.” In many ways, the two were opposites: “Janet was disciplined, grounded, sensible, orderly; George was creative, contrarian, and unorthodox.” Soon after meeting, they married and went off to teach at the London School of Economics. Though their personalities differed, their views on their field concurred. Both were critics of the efficient-market theory of economics, which held that individuals always act in their own best interests. Yellen and Akerlof believed that a person’s financial decisions are not always rational nor predictable. Similarly, they opposed the stance of economists such as Milton Friedman, who saw individual liberty to be “both a virtue in its own right and the central mechanism for economic good.” In 2001, Akerlof shared a Nobel Prize; his continued research in behavior and social psychology led to his creating the field of identity economics. Yellen attained ever higher political appointments as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, chair of the Federal Reserve, and secretary of the treasury. Hilsenrath draws on personal interviews and abundant published material to clearly elucidate economic theories, recount Yellen’s challenges in steering the nation through economic upheaval, and convey the warmth of the family’s life.
A lucid, informative portrait.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-316246-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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