Reviews and Comments

I had Waldron's book sitting in my "to read" pile for some time, and as luck would have it I actually picked it up around the same time that Meta announced its changes to allow more hate speech on its platforms. Although Waldron wrote this over a decade ago, the book's arguments could not be more timely. As a citizen of the United States, I have of course been inculcated with the value of free speech, and it is a value that I share. But before Waldron's book I had never fully considered the implications of this stance -- namely, those who argue the loudest for free speech rarely have to deal with the consequences of hate speech, nor are they its targets. Rejecting restrictions on hate speech tout court looks like a sign of unmistakable privilege, with "others" having to bear the burden of this principled stance. Waldron is aware that this stance is not likely to make headway in the United States, but his arguments must be read and grappled with by anyone who considers free speech to be a value.

I suppose that I had never given much thought, myself, to the concept of resilience. I mean, everyone faces adversity, needs to fight back, blah blah blah, and so on. But Chemaly's book really does a great job of peeling back the layers of what is going on underneath all this resilience talk, and the degree to which people, in the name of resilience, end up burying their pain. Moreover, focusing on "resilience" takes the focus away from the people doing harm -- those who are causing everyone else to have to be resilient. It turns out to be a deeply individualistic concept, turning us away from community. As she writes on page 206, "It's a 'we-them' resilience that doesn't teach us how to survive adversity but how to survive the worst of one another." I confess that once I started thinking about resilience in the way that Chemaly outlines, the concept and its associated hyper-individualism seemed so deeply engrained in American life that I'm not sure how to overcome it, but the final chapter offers some useful thoughts.

Coates's chapter on his journey to Palestine is the longest chapter in this book and has gotten the most public attention upon the book's release. But there's a lot more than "just" that to sink your teeth into in this compact but thoughtful work. Coates begins with a moving, autobiographical account of his discovering the joy of reading. One chapter covers his trip to Dakar, and another covers a journey to South Carolina to meet dedicated teachers fighting against his own books being banned in public schools there. In that chapter, I was particularly struck by his account of his own evolution as a writer, realizing that he could not simply stand on the sidelines as others were risking their positions in the community to defend his writing. This introspection continues into the Palestine chapter, and I was struck by his general tone of "I really thought X, but now I understand Y," which gives the book a level of self-reflection perhaps not always shared by Coates's loudest critics. Coates ties the end of the book back to the beginning's love of language and story by considering what role an outsider, like him, has in telling the story of other people. We are fortunate, in 2025, to have a thinker and writer of Coates's skill among us, and as the South Carolina chapter makes clear, preserving artists of this skill is going to take all of us working in their defense.

Metzl's book is both a detailed look at one particular mass shooting that took place at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018, and a wider consideration of the role that guns play in American society, and the degree to which a public health framing of the gun issue has helped or hindered the cause of limiting gun violence in the United States. Metzl is a careful observer as well as participant in these debates, and it is clear from his writing that he wants to take seriously the claims of Southern white people who feel that they must rely on guns for their safety, despite all evidence to the contrary. At the same time, Metzl does not shy away from the brutal reality of the role that racial animus plays in our gun policy. I'm paraphrasing Metzl’s text from memory here, but for many white Americans a Black person with a gun is a threat and a white person with a gun is a neighbor. A national politics that keeps white people aggrieved and seeing themselves as the victims only drives them deeper into a belief that possessing an armory is a necessary part of self-defense. It is difficult to walk away from this book feeling hopeful about the future of the country, but Metzl does close with some ideas at the end of the book for how to move forward. It's a start.

Sachs's book is not strictly a biography of Schoenberg -- he acknowledges up front that there are other, more detailed treatments of Schoenberg's life out there -- but Sachs definitely hits the highlights, and, more importantly, explores the question of why this composer's music and philosophy had the impact that they did on the wider musical world. I don't think I've ever read a book that starts with "A Warning," in which Sachs states plainly that Schoenberg's music is rarely performed by major orchestras around the world. But reading the book it is clear that Schoenberg had an impact on everyone he met; no one came away from him indifferent. Sachs concludes that if we can make room for novels or visual arts that challenge the reader/viewer, then surely we can have challenging music as well. The catch, of course, is that music requires an intermediary (the musicians) in between composer and listener; if no one wants to play the music, we won't hear it in the concert hall. But Schoenberg continues to have his advocates, and the place of his students Berg and Webern seems to be solid as well. The subtitle is a statement (why he matters), not a question (does he matter?) -- Schoenberg is a composer worth taking the time to listen to.