A timely, levelheaded analysis of America’s most polarizing political issues.
An engineer surveys America’s political landscape in this debut nonfiction book.
“We are in a time when people take positions on subjects and defend them as part of their ‘tribe,’” writes Taggart, who argues that hyper-partisanship not only excludes more than one-third of Americans who consider themselves independents, but also threatens democracy itself, as the election denialism of 2020 demonstrates. With more than three decades of experience as an engineer for corporate industries, the author hopes to offer a nonpartisan, “factual, data-driven approach” to America’s pressing political issues, from education and the economy to prescription drugs and energy. While admitting that “hard data” can be misinterpreted, he contends that ultimately “hard data won’t lie to you.” For instance, no amount of political spin can change the quantitative link between poverty and gun violence, a correlation that, to Taggart, offers alternative strategies to combat this phenomenon that don’t involve unattainable policies such as “disarming America.” Similarly, according to the book, the undeniable statistical data that African American men are more likely “to be killed by law enforcement, even when unarmed,” points to the continued legacy of systemic racism. Given the volume’s expressed “hope for moderation,” its centrist solutions to hot-button issues may not satisfy those on the two ideological poles. On dealing with systemic racism, for instance, the author rejects the possibility of reparations as unfeasible, and instead offers more tepid alternatives, such as a national database that shares information about police employment history and incidents. Alternately, the author’s belief that America needs “solutions to be simple” may not satisfy the more revolutionary aspirations of the left or the right. But those looking for evidence-based, centrist positions on polarizing issues will find a well-argued book that eschews ad hominem attacks and hot takes generated to maximize emotional engagement. Even if readers disagree with all of the author's conclusions, he provides more than a dozen tables and charts as well as over 100 endnotes for the audience to explore the evidence. For full transparency, the work’s data is provided to readers via the author’s website in the form of Excel spreadsheets.
A timely, levelheaded analysis of America’s most polarizing political issues.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781954779877
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Emerald Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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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