A remarkably exhaustive account of one of the 20th century’s—and perhaps the 21st century’s as well—most impactful...
A book offers a comprehensive tour of the history of socialism.
In the last U.S. presidential election, Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate, openly described himself as a socialist, sparking controversy over the contemporary meaning of the term. Bryson (The Economics of Henry George, 2011, etc.) slowly unravels the developmental spool of socialism, tracing its origin and ascendancy, its theoretical repudiation and practical collapse with the demise of the Soviet Union, and a kind of resurgent reinterpretation in contemporary America. The book divides into three main sections—in the first, a philosophical history of socialism is supplied that traces its moral core back to biblical theology, ancient Greek thought, and idealistic utopianism. With Marx, that utopianism takes on the patina of science and becomes a revolutionary attempt to eliminate private property as well as an entire class of people. Bryson also examines the view of Adam Smith and ably illuminates the moral core of it, a defense of human liberty. In the second section, the author limns the rise of socialism as it took root in Eastern and Western Europe, China, and, of course, the Soviet Union. The treatment of the Soviet experiment in communism is a highlight of the book and demonstrates that a “second economy” necessarily emerged, an underground free market of exchange demanded by the system’s resounding failures to meet its citizens’ needs. The last section details the insinuation of socialist ideas into the U.S., a nation in many ways inoculated against an unabashed embrace of them. As in Western Europe, socialism in America doesn’t necessarily mean the end of free markets but rather the establishment of a welfare state and aggressive redistribution of income and property. The scope of Bryson’s treatment is dizzying, the erudition nearly unbelievable, and his scholarly rigor impressive. But even in a book that reaches nearly 850 pages, one can still expect some depth to be sacrificed on the altar of thoroughness. For example, Hegel’s ontology of history, a crucial philosophical influence for Marx, is given only a handful of quick paragraphs. In the main, however, this is a magisterial work, encyclopedic and astute.
A remarkably exhaustive account of one of the 20th century’s—and perhaps the 21st century’s as well—most impactful ideologies.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5144-1460-6
Page Count: 944
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
