A rigorous treatment of a formidably difficult and deeply important subject.
Szymanski and Drew present a comprehensive analysis of the conceptual and symbolic frameworks necessary for formulating tactical plans for war in space.
The authors observe that the promise of outer space as a “warfighting domain” is considerable—it offers a “nuanced menu of alternatives” to “more disruptive options” for Earthly conflicts, and it could ultimately offer avenues of aggression that minimize the loss of life. However, since space warfare is such a new concept, it is challenging to strategically and tactically prepare for the eventuality, a point persuasively made by Szymanski and Drew in this remarkably thorough study. To meet this challenge, the authors formulate various conceptual schema to clarify the various levels of war. This “common language” accommodating the dizzying potentialities of space war can be tediously and intricately complex—there are pages and pages devoted to the proper “symbology,” with extended discussions of what kinds of arrows should be used to represent various actions. While such scrupulous attention to detail is likely essential, it means this book is only appropriate for those who think about such matters as a professional obligation. This is an astonishingly meticulous text, not surprising given the depth of expertise of the authors: Szymanski has nearly a half century of experience in space control, and Drew (currently the chief of joint space training at Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations at US Army Command and General Staff College) is one of the founding members of the nation’s space force. They carve out a permanent place for statesmanship: “No matter how sophisticated their military equipment, war is still about the knowledge, culture, traditions, education, intelligence, fear, and fatigue of the participants combined with the terrain, weather, political considerations, and the operational situation.” This is an important contribution, sure to be widely read as space becomes a more prominent theater of war.
A rigorous treatment of a formidably difficult and deeply important subject.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781637550717
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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