Reviews in Brief
- Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro. Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth. Snippets from the LRB review:. “A poll conducted by Time/CNN on the estate tax issue in 2000 revealed that 39 per cent of Americans believe that they are either in the wealthiest 1 per cent or will be there ‘soon’.”
“Norquist…”I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus per cent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, ‘Yes, well, that’s only 2 per cent,’ or, as people get richer, 5 per cent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that’s the morality of the Holocaust. ‘Well, it’s only a small percentage,’ you know. ‘I mean, it’s not you, it’s somebody else.’”
- Dickinson, Charles. With or Without. A collection of exquisite distinctly American short stories that carry the waft of Cheever and O’Henry. Dickinson is an author of great merit.
- Forester, E.M.. 1924. A Passage to India. An elegantly written novel about the conflict between the rulers and the ruled, and the impossibility of friendship between the two. While the novel occasionally deals in cliches, Forester’s perspicacity and humanity provides a calming influence. A significant achievement for its time and an important book for readers of English literature.
- Nasr, Vali. 2006. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future. W.W. Norton & Company. - A useful introduction for people who don’t know anything about the history between Shias and Sunnis. Otherwise a tedious compilation of relatively obvious information put forth in uneven style.
