A sharply observed work of political philosophy, with the warning that, in this world, the big ones eat the little ones.
On authoritarian politicians, megacorporations, and tycoons unfettered.
“All the guardrails of the old world—the respect for the independence of certain institutions, human and minority rights, a concern for international repercussions—have no value now that the hour of the predator is upon us.” So writes Italian Swiss writer and political scientist da Empoli, chronicling the post–Cold War implosion of democracy around the world. The predatory age, largely but not totally dominated by capitalism and capitalists, harks back to the “age of the Borgias or the conquistadors,” effected by brute force. Da Empoli, in a modern rejoinder to Machiavelli’s Prince, examines state violence as a constant process. So it is that Vladimir Putin has been adamant about continuing his war in Ukraine, legitimated, in a perverse way, by his effort to regain territory lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Likewise, da Empoli writes, actors everywhere are mounting offensive wars—which, after all, are cheaper than defensive ones, since it takes a multimillion-dollar missile to bring down a multihundred-dollar drone. The author writes with flair and a certain ironic snark, as when he appends to the Saudi dictator-in-waiting Mohammed bin Salman some iteration of the word “sweet”: “MBS, as he is known, is all sweetness and light”—until you cross him in some way, that is, at which point he becomes “Borgia 2.0.” Da Empoli offers keen remarks on the current American scene, noting, for instance, that every Democratic presidential candidate from Bill Clinton on has been a lawyer, every Republican a businessperson—and people hate lawyers. Thus, the author notes, “Donald Trump is a life form perfectly adapted to the present moment,” endorsing war on the old elites and rewriting history to erase the very thought of democracy.
A sharply observed work of political philosophy, with the warning that, in this world, the big ones eat the little ones.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781805680161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
© 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.
