A thorough, admiring, and not uncritical study of a political lion whose roar is much needed these days.
The second volume of the author’s fluent account of Edward Kennedy’s political career in the face of the government’s shift from New Deal liberalism to the beginnings of our current “deep crisis for democracy.”
The liberal consensus, writes Gabler, “had once been the prevailing American ideology.” When Kennedy entered the Senate in 1962 while his brother was president, that was certainly true. Yet, almost immediately, America began a rightward shift, hastened by Richard Nixon and his “fierce Kennedy hatred” and Ronald Reagan, who surrounded himself with hatchet men bent on undoing the administrative state. Yet as the author shows, even the intervening Jimmy Carter, a Democrat now being nominated, it seems, for sainthood, was no ally: Kennedy believed that Carter was “a man without convictions” who tried to play to the middle while running away from fights with conservatives, “whom Carter seemed to fear much more than he feared liberals.” So it was with other centrist Democrats, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who caved in to conservative demands while wondering how they were so often outmaneuvered. The stalwart Kennedy’s efforts at comprehensive legislation on national health care and a higher minimum wage were thus stifled or frittered away. On immigration reform, for instance, amendment after amendment was added to kill Kennedy’s bill, and years of negotiations died with them. “The ‘voices of fear,’ as Ted had called them, those on talk radio and in nativist circles, had won,” writes Gabler. The voices of fear have grown louder since then, and Kennedy’s liberalism is nearly unimaginable. The rightward line the author draws runs through Kennedy not as a prime mover but instead as someone whose longevity in the Senate was such that few had such a ringside seat to history only to watch the right prevail against a brand of politics that “might remind us of our better selves.”
A thorough, admiring, and not uncritical study of a political lion whose roar is much needed these days.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-23862-2
Page Count: 1280
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.
A carefully curated personal portrait.
First ladies’ roles have evolved significantly in recent decades. Their memoirs typically reflect a spectrum of ambition and interests, offering insights into their values and personal lives. Melania Trump, however, stands out as exceptionally private and elusive. Her ultra-lean account attempts to shed light on her public duties, initiatives, and causes as first lady, and it defends certain actions like her controversial “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” jacket. The statement was directed at the media, not the border situation, she claims. Yet the book provides scant detail about her personal orbit or day-to-day interactions. The memoir opens with her well-known Slovenian origin story, successful modeling career, and whirlwind romance with Donald Trump, culminating in their 2005 marriage, followed by a snapshot of Election Day 2016: “Each time we were together that day, I was impressed by his calm.…This man is remarkably confident under pressure.” Once in the White House, Melania Trump describes her functions and numerous public events at home and abroad, which she asserts were more accomplished than media representations suggested. However, she rarely shares any personal interactions beyond close family ties, notably her affection for her son, Barron, and her sister, Ines. And of course she lavishes praise on her husband. Minimal anecdotes about White House or cabinet staff are included, and she carefully defuses her rumored tensions with Trump’s adult children, blandly stating, “While we may share the same last name, each of us is distinct with our own aspirations and paths to follow.” Although Melania’s desire to support causes related to children’s and women’s welfare feels authentic, the overall tenor of her memoir seems aimed at painting a glimmering portrait of her husband and her role, likely with an eye toward the forthcoming election.
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781510782693
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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