The former secretary-general of the UN revisits his successes and failures in his single term of office (1992—96), with an emphasis on his always complex and often vexatious relationship with the US. Boutros-Ghali (Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem, 1997), an Egyptian scholar and diplomat, nearly 70 when he became the sixth secretary-general of the UN, had devoted his life to various international political endeavors. Although the US abstained in the vote that placed him in office, he enjoyed wide support among most other nations, especially those of the Third World. Unvanquished provides a behind-the-scenes look at the international crises that dominated the news in the early and mid-1990s: from elections in Cambodia and Haiti, to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, to the military debacle in Somalia, to the murder and starvation of tens of thousands of people in Rwanda, to the potential nuclear threat of North Korea, to the intractable problems with Iraq. Boutros-Ghali circled the globe in an indefatigable attempt to bring relief to the victims of oppression and war and economic disaster, to urge UN member nations to accept the new activist role he envisioned for the organization, and to attempt to remain neutral in the face of enormous contrary pressures. Boutros-Ghali occasionally reveals his legendary (and admitted) vanity (he lovingly describes his expensive collections of art and antiques, and reveals a fondness for tailored suits, fine wine, and exotic food), but his keen and troubling analysis of the relationship between the US and the UN eventually overpowers all else. In his eyes, the foreign policy of the US is chaotic, inconsistent, unpredictable, ultimately dangerous. And Secretary of State Madeline Albright, his principal antagonist, emerges as impulsive and vindictive, both insecure and arrogant, two-faced as Janus. Among the many compelling parts of this memoir are Boutros-Ghali’s accounts of the Albright-led attempt, ultimately successful, to deny him a second term. At times self-serving (like many memoirs), Unvanquished nonetheless presents a vivid, engaging self-portrait of a superb diplomat undone by politics.
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-375-50050-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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
SEEN & HEARD
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