It’s not Hunter S. Thompson, and O’Rourke has been funnier, lots funnier—but then again, it may just be that our current...
Tossed-off bons mots on “this obnoxious political spectacle, the election of 2016.”
Longtime political satirist O’Rourke (Thrown Under the Omnibus, 2015, etc.) surprised observers during the 2016 cycle by weighing in, if without much enthusiasm, for the Democratic candidate—not to be expected for someone who had long identified with a kind of country-club conservatism. Considering what the Republicans had to offer, that’s not really such a surprise, for O’Rourke has also long prided himself in contrarianism. Still, the author seems as much taken aback as any civilian by the spectacle that saw Donald Trump skyrocket over the preferred candidates, notably Jeb Bush, who, after all, was governor of Florida, “where balloting incompetence and corruption are vital to the GOP.” One by one, O’Rourke examines the slate as, one by one, they fall: Chris Christie is a chump who makes bad suits look worse, Rick Perry a dimwit whose effort at wearing glasses to look intellectual convinces no one, Marco Rubio merely “the least insane candidate.” Where O’Rourke hits hard on a mark, it seems almost accidental. His random remarks on Hillary Clinton’s manner, for instance, eventually add up to a rather deft analysis of how the elite class operates, while the insurgencies surrounding both Trump and Bernie Sanders are two faces of the same coin, species of “internecine warfare [that] brings forth the worst from both sides.” Still, even in the bloodletting and shambles, the author finds room for optimism: after all, we’re not as fragmented as in 1861 (“that was polarized”), and he even ventures the view that our divisions and manifold special interests may mean that American voters “are becoming persons, not masses.”
It’s not Hunter S. Thompson, and O’Rourke has been funnier, lots funnier—but then again, it may just be that our current political situation is no laughing matter.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2619-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
IN THE NEWS
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
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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