A persuasive argument that democratic values can be revived.
A sweeping exploration of how voter apathy, distrust of government, ideological extremism, and economic inequality point to a crisis of democracy.
Along with many contemporary political analysts, such as William Davies and Timothy Snyder, Reid-Henry (Geography/Queen Mary, Univ. of London; The Political Origins of Inequality: Why a More Equal World is Better for Us All, 2015, etc.), a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, is alarmed about the erosion of civic engagement and “loss of moral legitimacy” in Western democracies. Democracy, he asserts, is struggling to live up to its core value: a “commitment to reconciling pluralism with political justice.” In a capacious, hugely ambitious study of the last 40 years, the author chronicles when and how this crisis began. In the 1980s, tension between freedom and equality, individual demands and common needs, intensified under the “laissez-faire market economics” of the U.S. and U.K. Tax cuts undermined publicly funded mandates, regulation and oversight were rolled back, and public entities such as schools and prisons were handed over to for-profit businesses. Social welfare programs were “defunded, outsourced, means-tested,” and the family, rather than the community, was touted as “the central unit” of society. By the end of the 20th century, Reid-Henry asserts, “the reigning liberal blueprint was that of societies governed at a distance”; “collective thinking” was subsumed by individual interests. Moreover, wealth gained outsized influence, with public policies increasingly enacted not “to safeguard democracy” but, with great vigor, “to save capitalism.” In the current climate, politicians focus on how to win support from “powerful business lobbies, corporate managers, and international finance” rather than on promoting and publicizing a democratic political vision. Instead of debating issues, politicians now rely on “charisma” to win over voters. The author’s cogent analysis is undermined at times by convoluted prose, and although his evidence is abundant and compelling, the book might well have been judiciously honed. Nevertheless, he conveys an important message: Individual political action must become accountable to society’s interests.
A persuasive argument that democratic values can be revived.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4516-8496-4
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 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.
