A scholarly study of China’s pandemic response shows how trying to control information is the worst thing to do in a crisis.
An examination of how a culture that emphasizes stability was ill-prepared for massive disruption.
The global responses to the Covid-19 pandemic will be debated for many years, but this book provides a granular account of how it started. Yang, a senior political scientist and China specialist at the University of Chicago and author of a number of academic books about China, delves deeply into the first months, drawing on the records of the time and his own contacts. He notes that the Chinese government is usually seen as a dictatorial monolith, but in practice, this is not really true. Overlaps and gaps of authority are common at the local level, and framing it all is an obsession with stability. Consequently, when reports of an unusual illness connected to the Huanan Seafood Market began to appear, people were reluctant to sound the alarm. Even when information eventually filtered up to the higher levels of the health authorities, little happened, aside from official censorship. At some point, the infection numbers could no longer be ignored, and when Beijing swung into action, it moved fast, sending medical resources to the affected area and imposing a severe lockdown on Wuhan. The delays and obfuscation led to enormous damage. “No amount of investment, state-of-the-art equipment, or talent can make a difference if the public is kept uninformed and those with knowledge are not allowed to speak up or, if they do, are ignored, or even punished,” concludes Yang. Despite this essential lesson, much of the text will be a difficult read for general readers, with many detours and huge amounts of detail. The author’s careful analysis will be most useful for health professionals and policymakers.
A scholarly study of China’s pandemic response shows how trying to control information is the worst thing to do in a crisis.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9780197756263
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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
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
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