A well-researched and often poignant survey of the discipline of sociology.
A range of sociologists offer practical applications of their science to lay readers in this nonfiction anthology.
“Sociology,” write editors Lindholm and Wood in this book’s introduction, “pulls back the curtain to reveal the communities, groups, and social structures that shape our lives.” Far too often, the book contends, sociology is overlooked by other disciplines or relegated to the ivory towers of universities. Yet, the contributors here—all scholarly, trained sociologists—assert that their field can help everyday people “live more meaningful lives.” Wood, who provides end-of-life doula services, describes how studying sociology helped her to contextualize her own depression and anxiety, as they’re connected to harmful expectations regarding roles and cultural norms, and Lindholm describes how sociology gave her “a purpose.” The book’s 45 essays are divided into eight parts that span topics that touch on class, education, and popular culture, and they often blend personal memoir with sociological insight. University of Washington professor Pepper Schwartz’s essay, for instance, reflects on her graduate training at Yale University, where she says she learned “hard lessons” about misogyny, class, and power through experiences with the elitist bulwark; Grace Kao, a Yale University professor, reflects on her love of K-pop music and how its popularity could reduce racist violence against Asian Americans. Other chapters break down complex sociological theories that people often willfully misconstrue in public debates, such as systemic racism and queer identity. Lindholm taught courses on inequality, diversity, and gender at Northwestern University, and Wood earned her doctorate in sociology from Brandeis University. The book also features work by many other academics with prestigious CVs. However, the book eschews jargon as its team of sociologists aim to “free powerful ideas from their academic trappings” and focus on practical ideas and intimate real-life stories. To this end, chapters effectively conclude with glossaries of “Key Concepts,” questions for discussion or reflection, and suggested readings. The editors even helpfully offer an alternative thematic division of the book’s chapters, which, combined with its impressive index, makes it an ideal primer and reference tool.
A well-researched and often poignant survey of the discipline of sociology.Pub Date: June 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780226833873
Page Count: 339
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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