CATEGORY

Books Reviewed

How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times

            With the public gravitating toward insular hostile camps, bipartisan cooperation is rare in our current politics. Mónica Guzmán building a bridge between such groups....

Laura Coates’ Just Pursuit seeks a fair legal system for Blacks

Laura Coates, author of “Just Pursuit,” touches the heart as few other writers can. Her stories are not filled with anger or pity but...

Why Making the COVID Vaccine was a Long Shot

An interview with David Heath, author of Longshot, reveals that government, businesses, and many researchers discounted the science that made the COVID vaccine possible.  “Longshot: The...

Jelani Cobb Reflects on the Matter of Black Lives

In the last 12 months, Professor Jelani Cobb, a staff writer for the New Yorker, has authored three groundbreaking books on race in America. The Matter of...

Student Power, Democracy and Revolution in the Sixties

Since the Sixties, college students have disrupted our politics and culture. On-campus, their activism has reshaped our higher education institutions; off-campus, they have expanded...

Author of ‘After Cooling’ discusses Freon’s legacy and the societal cost of air conditioning

Originally published in the Seattle Times on 7/27/21 In opening Eric Dean Wilson’s book, “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of...

Can Critical Race Theory Reframe American History Successfully?

            For the first time in four decades, we have a new national holiday, the Juneteenth National Independence Day. It celebrates the liberation of Black...

Thom Hartmann takes on ‘The Hidden History of American Oligarchy’

Syndicated talk show host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann returns with a new book, The Hidden History of American Oligarchy — Reclaiming our Democracy...

Three WWII Books Mirror Our Current World Conflicts

  World War II ended 75 years ago, the problems that it left behind, displaced immigrants, lack of international law, and the use of nuclear...

Running against the Devil by Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson

Rick Wilson has worked to elect Republicans for thirty years, but he will “no longer use those skills to serve the party I once...

Civilized to Death – The Price of Progress

Originally published October 20, 2019, in the Seattle Times In Civilized to Death – The Price of Progress, author Christopher Ryan proposes the most controversial...

Book Review of Rodham – An Insight On How She Became President and He Did Not

  Hillary Clinton is the most famous woman politician of the twenty-first century, despite not becoming President of the U.S. Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Rodham (Random House $28)...

Three Books on the 2020 Presidential Election and their relevance to the Black Live Matter Protests

Each discusses strategies on how the election could address minority and racial injustices that have long been ignored. The recent killings of unarmed Black citizens...

A Very Stable Genius: Donald Trump’s Testing of America

William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, said that “we are a government of men and not law.” It has no force until people...

Book Review of ‘Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism’ by Sharyl Attkisson

One out of three adult Americans have no trust in our mass media, according to a September 2020 Gallup poll. Sharyl Attkisson attempts to...

On Fire by Naomi Klein

    Reading Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, is similar to watching a mega-disaster movie in a theater....

Back on Track – Seattle’s Urban Light Rail Story

I often read the inspiring tale of The Little Train That Could to my two-year-old granddaughter.  When she gets older, I should read her Bob Wodnik’s...

The Russian Job – Book Review

Douglas Smith is a Seattle-based independent Russian scholar. His 2018 book, The Russian Job – The forgotten story of how America saved the Soviet Union...

Seattle’s Medic One

/ “Seattle's Medic One: How We Don't Die” by Dr. Richard Rapport can be read as an informative account of Seattle’s pioneering public health services,...

Capital City & Gentrification by Samuel Stein

Gentrification is a natural byproduct of capital investments guiding urban development Urban planners are either praised or criticized for designing our cities. Planner Samuel Stein’s Capital...

Beautiful Country Burn Again; Democracy, Rebellion and Revolution by Ben Fountain

Writers deconstructing the 2016 election have their work cut out for them. But novelist Ben Fountain gets it right. Writing a book about the 2016...

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