A well-researched, insightful, infectiously enthusiastic book.
The author of Prisoners of Geography examines how leaping into space is both technically feasible as well as economically necessary.
Marshall is a British journalist who has written a series of well-regarded books about geography and its impact on politics, history, and human affairs in general. Here, he looks in a different direction: up. The author begins with a review of the early days of rocketry and space research, although most of that ground has been already covered. The pace picks up when he turns to the Moon landings and the deployment of early-generation satellites. Military imperatives drove much of the early technology, but gradually the emphasis moved to commercial objectives. Marshall ably explains how satellites actually work and the strategic importance of certain points in space that allow for geostationary orbit. The next step, notes the author, should be a return to the Moon, which has critical resources, possibly including water and a potential energy source called helium-3, which could be used for nuclear fusion. The author sees a growing consensus about a new Moon project but accepts that it would be a massive undertaking. One possibility is establishing a space station as a staging post. A Moon settlement could then act as a steppingstone to Mars and beyond. Once again, it is becoming a race with military goals, mainly between the U.S. and China. Marshall examines China’s burgeoning space program, noting that Russia, now faltering, is hoping that a partnership with China will put it back in the game. Marshall worries that once established in space, humans will simply repeat their geopolitical mistakes and conflicts. The current treaties are obsolete, and negotiating a new legal framework will be tricky, but he suggests some useful ideas. This is an engaging, informative read, and Marshall displays flashes of wit and a thorough understanding of the issues.
A well-researched, insightful, infectiously enthusiastic book.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781668031643
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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