A compelling and sensible overview of America’s emerging democratic crisis.
A veteran columnist assesses the state of American democracy in this debut collection.
Donald Trump’s “words, deeds and basic instincts,” this book asserts, “are fundamentally at odds with America’s long-held essential ideals.” And while “American democracy withstood the Trump presidency,” which served as the nation’s titular “stress test,” the United States is not out of the woods given his sustained popularity on the right and the rise of sycophants who follow in his political footsteps. An attorney, Cooper is also an active columnist whose writings have appeared in more than 100 publications. This volume, a compilation of select columns from 2019 through “the first few months of 2022,” argues that Trump represents a dangerous trend in American politics that disregards the rule of law and fundamental constitutional principles; “openly and unapologetically” challenges the outcomes of fair and free elections; and has “descended into a whirlpool of lies, false narratives and abhorrent stupidities.” And while adamant that Trump represents “the foremost threat to American democracy,” the author does not absolve Democratic politicians for actively participating in the “bipartisan race to the bottom.” Most notably, in addition to joining the toxic cacophony of hyperbolic voices that has become a staple in American rhetoric, the Democrats displayed a preoccupation and “overreaction” in their pursuit of Trump’s first impeachment that lowered the standards of the process in a way that jeopardized its legitimacy. Covering topics that span criminal justice reform to the Jan. 6 insurrection, Cooper’s columns, which are organized thematically and accompanied by short, introductory essays, are well balanced and soundly argued as individual pieces. Stuffed together in a book, the columns make for a sometimes disjointed read. Given the nature of newspaper columns, the volume also lacks references and a bibliography. Some readers may also be skeptical of the work’s idealized version of American democratic history, backed by an ample use of inspirational quotes from Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and other luminaries. Nevertheless, the book’s reasoned tone and bipartisan critiques are a welcome perspective in an increasingly polarized and heated political landscape.
A compelling and sensible overview of America’s emerging democratic crisis.Pub Date: July 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-913606-68-8
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Eyewear Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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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