A probing and limpid explanation of an often misunderstood patchwork of systems, requirements, and mechanisms.
A thorough examination of the specifics of voting in the U.S.
Constitutional scholar and law professor Wehle has designed this book as a guide for those seeking greater insight into a variety of related topics, including the slippery concept of the right to vote, the background basics of voting, and the structural barriers to voting. Though the writing is clear and conversational, there is a serious aura about the proceedings. She introduces readers to what she calls the “Voter Two-Step”—first register, then vote. This is not as simple as it sounds, as each state has its own stipulations; furthermore, the Constitution has no express provision conferring the right to vote. State legislatures administer federal, state, and local elections, so Wehle offers state-by-state breakdowns of specific requirements; early, provisional, and absentee voting; and the rights of those with disabilities. She then explores one of the most controversial elements of our political process, the Electoral College—“If this sounds to you like an insider’s game, you’re right. If this sounds bizarrely anti-democratic, you’re right again”—before moving on to gerrymandering (“politics-driven…congressional districts”); term limits; voter fraud and its cousin, voter suppression; the dicey role of money in politics; and the troubling role played by the Supreme Court regarding campaign finance laws. Though Wehle can—and has reason to—get cynical at times, she cogently lays out what readers need to know, all with an eye on an important question: “Who…is in charge of our democracy? If it’s not ‘We the People,’ who is it?” In the face of depressing news and statistics about voter turnout, tampering, and other issues, “the answer isn’t despair or complacency,” she writes. “The answer is to vote.” An appendix lists state-by-state registration and identification requirements, among other useful information.
A probing and limpid explanation of an often misunderstood patchwork of systems, requirements, and mechanisms. (illustrations)Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-297478-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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