A thoughtful progressive feint against the vulgar fearmongering of the moment.
A provocative look at the science and psychology behind fear-based politics.
Demos senior fellow Abramsky’s (The House of Twenty Thousand Books, 2015, etc.) argument feels simultaneously complex and familiar: constant sensationalism via social media and selective journalism of the Fox News variety has overwhelmed rationality within society. “Our anxieties and terrors were being nurtured by people and institutions who stood to make a buck out of those fears,” he writes. “In the campaign for the US presidency in 2016, those fears were nurtured as never before.” This American tendency to make fundamental decisions “with worst-case-scenarios as a psychic backdrop” is creating a more oppressive society, particularly for the poor and people of color, while corporate or criminal interests may profit. In crisply organized chapters, the author links a particular fear-driven aspect of life, such as extreme firearm or “prepper” culture or obsessive “helicopter parenting,” to the science behind brain chemistry and pattern recognition that may explain the ease of conditioning us to be fearful. He notes this occurred on a national level following 9/11, when citizens permitted the attackers’ fanaticism “to dictate the terms of our policy discourse.” Similarly, Abramsky is disturbed by Donald Trump’s rhetorical embrace of torture, which he views as an attempt to make his supporters complicit in any such actions. While more benign, he draws connections to fear-based movements such as preppers or anti-vaccination parents as part of a broader trend against rational risk calculation: “It turns out that pretty bizarre understandings of risk and fear are the norm rather than the exception.” The author argues that neurologists are using MRIs to understand how “simple presentiments of risk” have left us vulnerable to the manipulations of bigots. Though his argument can seem broad or overly tailored to current trends, Abramsky presents a clearly written synthesis of science and sociology.
A thoughtful progressive feint against the vulgar fearmongering of the moment.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56858-519-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nation Books
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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