An inspiring collection that could lead to further study of these remarkable historical figures.
Profiles of “ten bold and courageous women with ten important lessons to teach us.”
Haley’s latest book is a refreshing change from her previous tepid, partisan books. The author discusses the lives of women who have inspired her in her roles as South Carolina governor and as ambassador to the United Nations. The title comes from a quote from Margaret Thatcher: “If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.” Some of the women the author highlights are well known—Thatcher, Golda Meir, Amelia Earhart—and Haley applauds their determination to overcome significant obstacles. At the real heart of the book, however, are the women who led quite ordinary lives until driven to take a public role. Cindy Warmbier became a vocal critic of North Korea after her son was unjustly arrested there and later killed. Her actions eventually led to the nation being redesignated as a state sponsor of terrorism. Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman, escaped enslavement by the Islamic State group. (For more on her incredible story, check out her memoir, The Last Girl.) Virginia Walden Ford pushed for greater parental choice in education and for a scholarship program to assist disadvantaged students. Claudette Colvin was a civil rights activist who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus months before Rosa Parks. As the daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley understands discrimination. Virginia Hall worked as a spy for the French Resistance during World War II, and Wilma Rudolph overcame a polio-induced disability to become a champion runner. The connecting thread is the willingness to act for one’s beliefs, even if there are plenty of gainsayers and roadblocks along the way. “Your potential is limitless,” writes the author, speaking to women in particular. “Your life—the life you want—is worth fighting for. So, fight.”
An inspiring collection that could lead to further study of these remarkable historical figures.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-28497-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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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