A timely, significant examination of how Covid-19 affected many American systems, from health care to government.
An in-depth study of medical mistrust in post-pandemic America.
Gorman, a public health expert and author of Denying to the Grave, uses interviews she conducted with subjects from a range of backgrounds to show how medical mistrust and belief in conspiracy theories connect to the current political climate, as well as how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced Americans’ lack of confidence in the health care system and the government’s ability to care for its people. Though the author focuses on the current pandemic era, she makes relevant arguments about how our current situation has been building through disasters like the 2008 financial crisis, the AIDS epidemic, and ongoing attacks on funding for social services in the U.S. “The loss of trust in the healthcare system is not independent of the loss of trust in other prominent institutions of our democracy—everything is in fact connected,” writes Gorman. She also examines how egregious experiments of the past, including but not limited to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, have further alienated Black Americans, though she argues that present-day systemic racism is an even deadlier deterrent for many people of color in seeking health care. In that way, Gorman’s work is equal parts tightly focused and wide ranging, tackling many related issues of our age with expert research and highly readable storytelling. “It feels as though every event in the United States is inevitably shrouded in a dark cloud of distrust and conspiracy theories,” she writes, “and sometimes that smog is so thick and so opaque that we feel absolutely lost in looking for a clear path forward.” Throughout the book, Gorman not only helps readers understand the grave mistakes of the past; she also offers suggestions to find a path forward.
A timely, significant examination of how Covid-19 affected many American systems, from health care to government.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780197678121
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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