Entertainment and a bit of wisdom for a thinking audience.
The prolific novelist, essayist and philosopher comes this time as a latter-day Walter Lippmann in this gathering of journalism, most of which first appeared in two Italian newspapers.
Eco (The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, 2005, etc.) considers the disquieting retrograde circumstances of world civilization, discussing topics as diverse as racism, Harry Potter and the Tower of Babel. He urges us to be aware of the difference between science (generally a good thing) and technology (sometimes not so good). He notes that, since the end of the Cold War, “paleowar” has given way to “neowar”; armed conflict now has no front and, ultimately, no winner. Neowar is media-based and the cure is unlikely: universal peace. Eco’s wide-ranging journalism speculates on the difficulties of theocracy and private schools, on the instructions of Mussolini and Thucydides, on the uses of the crucifix and the soul of an embryo. He also has some witty things to say about The Da Vinci Code and Mel Gibson’s version of The Passion. Throughout, Eco provokes readers with his arsenal of classical learning and easy humor. He reflects on anti-Semitism, Latin etymology, fundamentalist hermeneutics, village idiots (aka politicians) and, finally, death. Though some commentary is dated (e.g., what will become of Saddam?), the writing exudes an easygoing, natural intelligence. Italian politics, especially some easy potshots at the Berlusconi regime, gets much ink. (Lest readers this side of the Atlantic tend to nod, be assured there are lessons to be learned when such politicos make state interests coincide with their private interests.) The sagacious author, a professional semiotician, presents commentary on the difficulties of communication, with exposures of bunkum and cant reminiscent of Orwell. If confusion still exists, he declares, “I’m not the one who confuses ideas; we have merely discussed ideas that are confused, and it’s a good thing if we understand that they are confused…”
Entertainment and a bit of wisdom for a thinking audience.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-15-101351-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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