Don’t Shoot
by David M. Kennedy
The Week
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The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
by William J. Stuntz
(Harvard, $35)
William Stuntz’s new book rails against an American criminal-justice system that has become “one of the most punitive in the world without providing a corresponding level of public safety,” said Paul G. Cassell in The Wall Street Journal. After a period of low incarceration rates, the U.S. now leads the world in that category. Stuntz’s arguments for reform don’t all add up, but they “deserve wide discussion.” Whether the system has “collapsed” is debatable, “but few would argue that it can’t be improved.”
The City That Became Safe
by Franklin E. Zimring
(Oxford, $30)
Beginning in 1991, “something completely unexpected happened with New York City crime,” said Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune. Eighty percent of it vanished, marking the largest urban crime decline ever recorded. Berkeley criminologist Franklin Zimring argues that the biggest factors were “focusing cops on high-crime areas and closing down outdoor drug markets.” But he acknowledges that just how New York went from urban dystopia to metropolitan Mayberry remains partially a mystery.
The Justice Cascade
by Kathryn Sikkink
(Norton, $28)
The 1998 arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet marked “a turning point” in the history of human rights, said G. John Ikenberry in Foreign Affairs. Rarely in past centuries were former or sitting heads of state prosecuted in court for human-rights crimes committed while in power. In Kathryn Sikkink’s telling, activists in Europe and the U.S. turned the tide. Her book is “an inspiring story of the rise and spread of a set of ideas and norms”—what the author calls a “justice cascade.”
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Film reviews: 'Wicked: For Good' and 'Rental Family'Feature Glinda the Good is forced to choose sides and an actor takes work filling holes in strangers' lives
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‘Like a gas chamber’: the air pollution throttling DelhiUnder The Radar Indian capital has tried cloud seeding to address the crisis, which has seen schools closed and outdoor events suspended
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Political cartoons for November 23Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a Thanksgiving horn of plenty, the naughty list, and more
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”