An affirming flame Meditations on life and politics

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

New York Times journalist Cohen (The Girl from Human Street) gathers in this erudite and incisive collection columns written from 2005 to 2020 for the paper's international and domestic editions. Enriched by Cohen's background as a foreign correspondent, highlights include an interview with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić (who expresses indifference to the atrocities committed under his watch) that is interwoven with stunning vignettes capturing the Bosnian War's human toll: "When you say you are just a journalist, an observer, I understand you but I still hate you," one woman tells Cohen. Elsewhere, Cohen observes women leading protests against a disputed election in Iran in 2009 ("For days now, I've seen them urging less courageous men on"); analyzes how warnings from leading politicians and international corporations that Brexit would have "dire consequences" on England only "goaded a mood of defiant anger against those very elites"; and interviews asylum seekers in El Paso ahead of a 2019 Trump rally there ("Trump calls us killers, delinquents, and drug dealers," says a 43-year-old mother from southwestern Mexico. "In fact, that is exactly what we're fleeing from!"). Similarly incisive quotes litter the collection, highlighting Cohen's skills as an observer and demystifier of complex geopolitical events. The result is a master class in opinion writing. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners. (Feb.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Currently Paris bureau chief for the New York Times, Cohen spent 12 years as a Times columnist writing sharply observant pieces about issues that include U.S. political divisiveness, Trump's threat to democracy, the global refugee crisis, the consequences of COVID, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. relations with China, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here he picks favorites and annotates them.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The longtime New York Times writer chronicles two tumultuous decades through his columns. Cohen, Paris bureau chief of the Times and formerly that paper's op-ed columnist, gathers more than 100 pieces published from 2005 to 2020, creating a stirring collection of cultural critique, penetrating reportage, and candid autobiography. In an extensive introduction, he provides an overview of his life and work; a helpful headnote prefaces each selection. A naturalized American, Cohen was born in South Africa, which his parents left because of apartheid, and the Polish side of his family were victims of the Nazis. Cohen grew up in the U.K., where, in the 1960s, he encountered both latent and overt antisemitism and, at home, witnessed his mother's descent into mental illness. As a young man, he traveled--one piece recounts his experiences "in Afghanistan as a seventeen-year-old hippie"--and he finally found a home in New York. His columns include dispatches from Tehran, China, Cairo, Libya, Vietnam, Gaza, Ukraine, Munich, Hungary, and Poland--as well as many cities in the U.S., where he has investigated Donald Trump's hold on voters. A vociferous critic, he warned as early as 2015 to take the man seriously. Some pieces serve as memorials to family, friends, and public figures: among them, his beloved Uncle Bert, Israeli writer Amos Oz, Richard Holbrooke, and John McCain. Although Cohen defines himself as a stubborn optimist, the collection tells "a sobering story," as he recounts injustice, racism, poverty, disease, nationalism deformed into fascism, and "an America where Americans have lost sight of one another." His focus throughout his career has been to promote "freedom, decency, pluralism, the importance of dissent in an open society, above all." Although he modestly describes the work of a journalist as "a life lived as an observer," more than bearing witness to history, he has offered his readers shrewd analysis and often prescient insight. A collection of perceptive, astute journalism from a master at the craft. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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