With solid research and engaging humor, this book takes apart the conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family.
Trekking through the maze of accusations surrounding the Rothschild dynasty.
Journalist Rothschild, a conspiracy theory expert and author of The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, is not related to the famous Rothschild family, but he readily admits that the name is one of the most recognizable in the world. Synonymous with untold riches, luxurious indulgence, and shadowy power, the Rothschild family has been accused of almost everything, from manipulating wars for profit to controlling the weather and even starting the California wildfires with an orbiting solar generator (hence the book's title). Much of the ire is rooted in antisemitic tropes, and the author carefully unpacks the connections. The dynasty began in the mid-16th century, when Isak Rothschild scrambled out of the Frankfurt ghetto and established himself as a banker. The myth really took off when the family became financier to various European governments, cementing the idea of commercial acumen turning into political influence. The conspiracy theories evolved, with proponents endlessly quoting each other and connecting bits of “evidence” to concoct lurid tableaux of power wielded in secret. The notion that the family “owns” the U.S. Federal Reserve is particularly outlandish, illustrating how contrary evidence can be folded into the conspiracy. “Whenever Western pop culture needs a wealthy and secretive family to be running some kind of hidden puppet-master routine,” writes the author, “the Rothschilds are available.” A new generation of Rothschild conspiracy theories has taken hold in Asia and the Muslim world, and they have even found a niche in hip-hop. The Rothschilds, for their part, largely maintain a dignified silence. The author does a solid job of separating fact from fantasy, creating an interesting examination of how conspiracy theories appear, spread, and metastasize—not unlike tumors.
With solid research and engaging humor, this book takes apart the conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781685890643
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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