Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Cose (Democracy, If We Can Keep It) delivers a brisk and well-informed rundown of contemporary debates over the limits of the First Amendment. Noting that the ACLU fought on behalf of "white-rights activist" Jason Kessler to hold the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., Cose asserts that the concept of free speech as a universal, all-encompassing right was invented in the 20th century and is "inextricably linked to the notion that in the competition of ideas, good ideas generally crowd out bad." He details how social media algorithms have exposed that truism as naive at best and dangerous at worst, and how corporations have asserted their First Amendment rights in order to "dominate political discourse" and justify and preserve social inequality. According to a legal scholar Cose cites, in the 2010 Citizens United decision abolishing limits on corporate campaign spending, the Supreme Court was "doing precisely the opposite of what it claimed to be doing... instead of protecting speech, the court was disempowering citizens." Cose also examines how President Trump "brought the ethos of the internet to traditional media" by running a campaign "based on polarizing emotions and a war on truth." Though short on practical solutions, Cose makes a persuasive argument that the balance between free speech and democracy is out of whack. Progressives will be drawn to this nuanced and wide-ranging account. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In Mill Town, Orion book review editor Arsenault looks back at her childhood in working-class Mexico, ME, where the local paper mill employing most of the townsfolk despoiled the environment and undermined the community's physical and emotional health, ultimately earning the area the nickname "Cancer Valley" (50,000-copy first printing). Washington Post journalists Bade and Demirjian had a front-row seat on the impeachment hearings and share their insights and expertise in A Perfect Phone Call, intriguingly BISACed Political Science/Corruption & Misconduct (75,000-copy first printing). In The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America, journalist and best-selling author Cose (The Rage of a Privileged Class) argues that what's really threatening free speech is an imbalance of economic, political, and technological power giving a handful (e.g., Donald Trump) great room to decry so-called fake news and use hate language while ordinary individuals have little comparable voice 40,000-copy first printing). Former defense secretary and mega-best-selling author Gates (Duty) returns to examine America's Exercise of Power--or lack thereof, for as he argues, America has floundered since the end of the Cold War because it has failed to see power not simply as a matter of military might or do-as-we-do hectoring but more importantly, of vision in diplomacy, economics, intelligence, development assistance, and ideology (just moved up from September to June). With Liar's Circus, Edgar Award nominee and former contributing editor to National Geographic Traveler Hoffman rides through more rough terrain as he reports on Donald Trump's MAGA rallies, focusing not on what Trump said but on the people attending (200,000-copy first printing). The child of Salvadoran immigrants, including an abusive father shaped by his country's 1932 massacre of tens of thousands of indigenous peoples, Lovato grew up in 1970s California, joined the guerrilla movement in El Salvador fighting against the corrupt government, then returned to the States to become a journalist. His memoir, Unforgetting, reports on issues like gangs and immigration, and how they have impacted the relationship between El Salvador and the United States (25,000-copy first printing). Harvard political philosopher Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit argues that focusing relentlessly on equal opportunity as the wellspring of merit misses the point, allowing winners to preen unnecessarily, failing to recognize that luck plays a part, and ignoring the value of solidarity as community glue and goal. In This Is Ohio, journalist Shuler uses events in a state hit badly by the opioid crisis to argue that our addiction crisis--to all substances, not just opioids--is a human rights issue reflecting policy inadequacies regarding poverty and health care. Longtime activist/politician Sharpton, currently host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, looks at the current political landscape and argues that we need to Rise Up now that we face a test of our values--indeed, of our very character (200,000-copy first printing).
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A concise study of how free speech has changed throughout America's history. Cose has had a remarkably distinguished career: Newsweek columnist and contributing editor, New York Daily News editorial page chief, fellow at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University, and inaugural writer-in-residence at the ACLU, among other positions. His latest book is a cogent, well-informed analysis of the vexed problem of free speech. The freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment, writes the author, was crafted by "frustrated and exhausted men" who believed that "in the competition of ideas, good ideas generally crowd out bad." Within a decade, however, the Alien and Sedition Act curtailed speech attacking the government; Cose cites many more subsequent cases when courts have ruled on "the question of what is acceptable and what is not, what speech merits protection and what speech deserves punishment." There has never been a time, he writes, without constraints on speech. The author examines many impediments to free speech, such as voter suppression; the Citizens United decision; and the Electoral College and the Senate, both resulting from the founders' suspicion of direct democracy. Cose also considers free speech protests on college campuses, suggesting that students need instruction in critical thinking in order to evaluate information and misinformation. The author is deeply troubled by dialogue "dominated by the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and other apps that specialize in bursts of short, superficial communication." The nation's founders had no foresight to know that the First Amendment, "which was designed to enable the people to speak truth to power--would be hijacked by hatemongers, propagandists, and opportunists more interested in despoiling democracy and degrading debate than in ensuring that a diverse nation speaks in harmony." When "lies swaddled in bigotry" dominate political dialogue, the fantasy of free speech, and our "absolutist illusions" about the founders' intentions, has become pernicious. A knowledgeable and timely perspective on the current fraught state of democracy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
