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Title: The Miner's Canary : Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy by Lani Guinier, Gerald Torres ISBN: 0-674-01084-1 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: 21 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Timely and bold
Comment: A bold call for bringing people together and transforming society. If you are class conscious and anti-racist read this book, it will be worth the challenge.
Rating: 5
Summary: This Book Recalls Ellison's Invisible Man
Comment: Because it's the best book about race relations in America since Ellison's work of fifty years ago. When I put The Miner's Canary down, I wished I had read the Acknowledgements first, then the chapter "by" Torres. It is a difficult book, it has many authors, many levels of analysis, and it treats its central topic -- political race -- from many angles. These are not shortcomings, but they add up to a demanding book.
The book's real-life examples are all one -- compelling and utterly elucidating. And the long illustration of how Greek democracy in action would look if it followed American districting and apportionment rules is surpassing wonderful.
Then there's the book's immediacy. Economic historians like Robert Fogel have emphasized the role of religion and technology in America's movements for social progress virtually to the exclusion of progressive consciousness. The Miner's Canary, on the other hand, puts social progress over the last twenty-five years squarely within the politics of progressivism. This is not necessarily inconsistent with the economic historians (whatever one thinks of the validity of their argument), assuming their subject is movements in the past before about 1980 when the Big Sleep set in -- which it is. And assuming something new has been happening since then -- which is exactly what the Guinier and Torres book says. Something new IS happening and it started being more than unrelated occurrences about twenty five years ago. This new thing Guinier and Torres call political race.
The ambition, originality and insights of this book far outweigh its difficulties due to multiple voices and an "un-ironed out" presentation. I give it five stars.
Rating: 1
Summary: Why this book fails
Comment: Guiner and Torres write pedantically with little organization or cohesion. Although the anecdotes were interesting, the authors' arguments reek of indolent emotionalism rather than theory and sound policy.
I realize this is a critical review. I try to be fair to all viewpoints, but this vacuous work warrants these harsh words. Gerald Torres was a visiting professor at Harvard, where his indifferent attitude to his own class and examination live on in infamy. He is not proficient at conveying information.
In short, while Torres and Guiner intended to write a mentally stimulating book, this work is instead mind numbing. Spend your money on another book. For alternate reading on race theory, try "Unequal Treatment: A Study in the Neoclassical Theory of Discrimination" by Lundahl and Wadensjo.
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Title: Who's Qualified? by Lani Guinier, Joshua Cohen, Joel Rogers ISBN: 0807043354 Publisher: Beacon Press Pub. Date: 08 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY : FUNDAMENTAL FAIRNESS IN REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY by Lani Guinier ISBN: 0029131693 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia by Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, University of Chicago Press, James E. Rosenbaum ISBN: 0226730905 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Policy Paradox and Political Reason by Deborah A. Stone ISBN: 0673397513 Publisher: Scott Foresman & Co Pub. Date: March, 1988 List Price(USD): $26.30 |
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Title: The Coming White Minority by Dale Maharidge ISBN: 0679750088 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 20 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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