Not necessarily persuasive, but imaginative at least. (b&w illustrations)
Changes in female sexuality were the impetus for the rapid development of Homo sapiens as a species unlike any other, argues the author of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess (1998).
California surgeon Shlain is unafraid to tackle huge topics outside his area of expertise, venturing boldly into the worlds of evolutionary biology and primatology with a grand and unifying theory that explains almost everything. He argues that the ancestral female of the species, dubbed Gyna sapiens to distinguish her from her male counterpart, was confronted by a crisis when large-brained babies began to make childbirth a life-and-death matter. Her evolutionary response was the loss of estrus and concomitant year-round sexual receptivity, which altered the relationship between Gyna and Homo; now she could choose when to have sex and use this power as a bargaining chip for provisions and long-term protection. The regular appearance of menses, coincident with the lunar cycle, endowed Gyna with foresight and the concept of future time, which brought with them an understanding of the link between sexual intercourse and pregnancy. She shared this new knowledge with Homo, making him aware for the first time of his own mortality. Not entirely comforted by the notion that paternity could give him a measure of immortality, Homo invented religious convictions that included belief in an afterlife. The need for women and men to negotiate sex with each other spurred the development of speech, Shlain contends, going on to explain how a limited proportion of homosexual men and women might benefit a tribe (as might male balding, color-blindness, and left-handedness) and how incest came to be taboo. The author links Gyna’s veto power over sex to the rise of patriarchy and misogyny, expressions of men’s drive to control female sexuality and reproduction. The generally stimulating text, however, is marred by an unfortunate and unnecessary decision to call evolutionary processes “Mother Nature” and to depict imaginary scenes between a Gyna named Eve and a Homo named Adam.
Not necessarily persuasive, but imaginative at least. (b&w illustrations)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2003
ISBN: 0-670-03233-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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