A sharp-tongued, altogether readable, and welcome assault on unrestrained wealth.
A charged study of the second-tier wealthy in America, the principal engine of inequality.
Yes, the richest of the rich own a disproportionate share of the world’s wealth, the top one-thousandth who “now own almost one quarter of everything of economic value in the country.” This represents an index of inequality that, writes philosopher and historian Stewart, we haven’t seen since before the Great Depression. Overlooked, though, are the remaining 9.9 percent in that top-10 tier, those whose net worth, beginning in the low millions, collectively embraces “more than half of [the] personal wealth in the nation.” These people, overwhelmingly White and well educated, are enthusiastic proponents of the myths of merit and the wisdom of the free market (“the great opiate of the 9.9 percent”), which is not free and also generates inequality as a feature and not a bug. Indeed, the capture and hoarding of so many financial resources by this cohort yields inequality on every front: enclaved neighborhoods that constitute de facto segregated housing, elite schools that constitute de facto segregated education, and an academia that is all too willing to support these inequalities and the accompanying politics of unreason. “Intellectuals like Amy Chua and Jonathan Haidt occupy the most meritorious perches in the American hierarchy of learning,” writes Stewart. “Why do they have so much trouble calling a con job a con job? If they are not standing up for reason, then who is?” Those are questions demanding answers, and underlying them is that politics of unreason, which “always favors injustice over justice and…always targets those who are most vulnerable.” Stewart’s charges are comprehensive, and sometimes he can be a little testy (“Universal American stupidity was undoubtedly a comorbidity factor for Covid-19”), but he matches them with a reasonable demand for a commitment to economic justice that would elevate all Americans, not just the lucky few.
A sharp-tongued, altogether readable, and welcome assault on unrestrained wealth.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982114-18-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
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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