Book Review: Aid State

Jake Johnston, Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2024.  ISBN: 9781250284679.

Genre: current affairs, Haiti

Subgenre: history, politics, international affairs

Format: hardcover

Source: Eastside Branch, Lexington (KY) Public Library 

This is a good book to help readers understand the Haitian collapse recently and the history that led to this point. The book mainly covers from the 2010 earthquake to the assassination of the most recent president, at the time, President Jovenel Moïse. The book features extensive research. The author draws on extensive interviews with politicians, NGO officials, and Haitians. He also adds from his extensive journalistic experience covering Haiti, and he even provides materials from sources obtained via FOIA requests, request that the U.S. Government was often reluctant to provide. 

Soon we learn that it is not so much that Haiti is a "failed" state. It is more that it was a state that never had a fair chance to succeed. From the French imposing onerous reparations after Haiti became independent to American interventions to foreign interventions, Haiti never really had a chance to chart and make its own destiny. Local elites, corrupt local officials, NGO's, and foreign governments all colluded at various times to promote their own interests at the expense of the Haitian people and country. This is a book where very few come out looking well. For the most part, foreign nations, business interests, and NGO's are basically running, or trying to run, Haiti to further their own agendas. A particularly nefarious way they do so is through money and aid, making Haiti into an "Aid State" dependent on aid funding. This also means at times that if Haiti does not fall in line, funding can be cut. If you've ever donated money to a Haitian relief effort, you may want to consider who you are giving the money to; some of these relief organizations may not be as virtuous as you think. 

The book is well researched with extensive notes for documentation. However, it is a dense book at times, and it can be heavy reading. The narrative is full of details and a lot of minutiae at times. It may not always be easy to keep track of what happens when and who does what. Yet the book exposes an extreme neocolonialism strangling a small nation where people still struggle and hope for the best. 

At this time, this book is a pretty good overview of what is happening in Haiti and how it got there. It also exposes the role of the United States, its government, private enterprise, and NGO's, such as the Clinton Foundation,  in trying to mold Haiti to their wishes. Add in other international players, and it is a neocolonial game all over again. Want to learn more about U.S. foreign policy? This book shows you how the U.S. applies it to Haiti, which can serve as an example of what they do elsewhere. As the author writes, learning about U.S. foreign policy is a way of "confronting the hypocrisy at the core of our own origin story" (9).

I recommend the book for public and academic libraries. Readers of current events may be interested in this one. Book may also be of interest for readers in political science, current affairs, and Latin American and Caribbean history. As I said, it is not an easy read, upsetting at times, but worth it to learn more. 

3 out of 5 stars.

Book qualifies for the following 2024 Reading Challenge: 

 

Book Review: Writing on Empty

Natalie Goldberg, Writing on Empty: a Guide to Finding Your Voice. New York: St. Martin's Essentials, 2024. ISBN: 9781250342546.

Genre: memoir

Subgenre: COVID-19 times, writing, travel 

Format: e-book galley

Source; Edelweiss Plus 

 

In this book, Natalie Goldberg writes about her journey struggling to get out of a serious writer's block moment. This block happened just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The publisher advertises the book as "a gentle and instructive guidebook to remembering what truly matters." That is partially true. The book's subtitle is "a Guide to Finding Your Voice." To be honest, I was expecting more than I got in this book. 

Let's get down to it. Goldberg's solution was to just leave her home in New Mexico to visit various literary sites, especially in the Western United States. My first thought was it must be nice to be able to just take off and drive out to seek inspiration. The rest of the book is mostly a memoir chronicling her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic times (when the pandemic was in its prime). It essentially looks at some traveling she did, meeting cautiously with friends, and just noting what was happening in her life at the time. The other prominent topic is her serious hate for Google, social media, and the Internet, which she discusses at length in various parts of the book. 

The bottom line for this book. If you are a memoir reader, and you want to read a memoir that takes you back to the dark days of COVID, this may be for you. If you want a bit of travelogue to some literary sites, this may be for you as well. If you are looking for a writing guide and overcoming writer's block, other than taking trips, this may be a book to skip. 

The book does not give that much about actual writing. We get some writing instructions at the end of the book. This last part feels a bit like a lecture where the teacher gives the solution at the end after presenting a somewhat convoluted word problem or distills a long essay. If you just want the writing instruction and advice, you can skip ahead to the last part in the book and go past all the sightseeing. 

I would consider this book as optional reading. Goldberg's fans will probably want to pick it up. Memoir readers may want to consider it. Readers looking for a book about writing, as the title suggests, may want to go back to her previous book Writing Down the Bones, which does provide some good reading guidance. 

This is a very optional selection for libraries. Libraries that have collected her other books may want to add this one for completists. Otherwise, I'd say it is optional. It was OK for me, but I do feel some of her previous works are better. 

2 out of 5 stars. 

Book qualifies for the following 2024 Reading Challenges: 

Booknote: Ghosts: a Natural History

Roger Clarke, Ghosts: a Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-250-05357-2.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: ghosts, paranormal, history
Format: hardcover
Source: Berea branch of the Madison County Public Library

This book just did not keep my attention. I barely got through it. After reading Ghostland (link to my review), this book seemed like a good choice. The book promises a natural history of ghosts, but to be honest, it was more a collection of ghost and haunting stories than an actual history per se. The book contains 18 chapters plus a chronology and a list for further reading. It also includes some illustrations.

According to the author, this is what the book is about. Too bad it did not deliver:

"Discussion has drifted away-- thank goodness-- from efforts to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts. That idea belongs to 1880s London. In a basic sense, ghosts exist because people constantly report that they see them. This is not a book about whether ghosts exists or not. This is a book about what we see when we see a ghost, and the stories that we tell each other about them" (17).

The author opens the book by telling  of his own experiences as a child with  ghosts and the paranormal. He was the youngest person to join the Society for Psychical Research (Wikipedia link; official website link) in 1980. So he sounds just like the right person to write this book, except he is not. He takes a most interesting topic and presents it in the most boring and soporific way possible. Ghost stories often keep you up at night. This book is an excellent cure for insomnia. The stories overall are not that interesting, and some of them just get bogged down in excessive and  mundane minutiae. In the end, the book had potential, but it is just not a good read at all. This is one I say you should skip.

1 out of 5 stars.

Booknote: Tears We Cannot Stop

Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: a Sermon to White America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017.  ISBN: 978-1-250-13599-5.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: African American studies, Black politics, social studies, social justice, racism, race relations
Format: hardcover
Source: Berea branch of the Madison County (KY) Public Library.

Up front, I have to say this is probably a book the campus faculty reading group needs to read and discuss instead of yet another academic treatise. The sad thing about that is that it would be preaching to the choir, and this book needs to be read widely, especially  by White Americans who seriously need to get a clue about the Black experience in the United States. Given the racial tensions rising and the emboldening of bigots due to the Pendejo In Chief regime, this book is definitely timely.

Dyson combines deeply and often moving personal experiences with solid arguments and a call for major change in the United States. The book is arranged in the form of a church service (Protestant church; keep in mind that Dyson is an ordained minister). This structure allows him to do exposition, a call, and then the sermon where he lays it all out. In essence, Dyson is telling White people the things they need to hear and ought to know. The time for ignorance, innocent or more likely willful, is over once one reads this book.

The book can be a pretty heavy read at times, and at times things can look seriously bleak. Yet like a good sermon, you can find a small ray of hope at the end, but readers do have to do some work after the service. Among his solutions, he offers a different idea on the old concept of "reparations." It is worth a look.

As reader, I  found myself nodding in agreement at times. I was also moved, and there were moments of despair at the bleak picture the book presents at times. Yet I came out having learned more. I am trying to keep a bit optimistic in these hard times, but I admit books like these, necessary as they are, do not make it easy. In the end, I really liked it. I recommend it, and I hope more people read it.

4 out of 5 stars.

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Additional reading notes: 

Why the book is unlike his other social analysis books and why he uses the form of a sermon:

"What I need to say can only be said as a sermon. I have no shame in that confession, because confession and repentance, and redemption play a huge role in how we can make it through the long night of despair to the bright day of hope" (6). 

Dyson points out that whiteness is not a solo act. It has a supporting cast, and one of the biggest supporters is the field of American history, which is not as objective as we are led to believe:

"But the truth is that what so often passes for American history is really a record of white priorities or conquests set down as white achievement. That version of American history is a sprawling, bewildering chronicle, relentlessly revised. It ignores or downplays a variety of peoples, cultures, religions, and regions, all to show that history is as objective and as curious and as expansive as the white imagination allows" (52). 

The above quote is also a great case for why you should read widely and diversely.

Next we get the answer to whiny poor whites who exclaim their whiteness offers them no privilege:

"It has been striking, too, to observe whites for whom their whiteness isn't a passport to riches, whites for whom whiteness offers no material reward. But there is a psychological and social advantage in not being thought of as black; poor whites seem to say, 'At least there's a nigger beneath me.' And it's a way for poor whites to be of value to richer whites, especially when poor whites agree that black folk are the source of their trouble-- not the corporate behavior of wealthier elites who hurt black and white folk alike. It's a way to bond beyond class. It's a way for working class whites to experience momentary prestige in the eyes of richer whites. And there are a lot of privileges that white folk get that don't depend on cash. The greatest one may be getting stopped by a cop and living to talk about it" (66).

The above quote reminds me of three things:

• LBJ's quote: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." (confirmed by Snopes he did say it). 
• Lawrence Fishburne's character's speech on gentrification in Boyz in the Hood (reminded for a different reason; link to YouTube clip). 
• Twitter accounts like @trump_regrets. 

Defining white fragility, something we are seeing a lot more of lately:

"White fragility is the belief that even the slightest pressure is seen by white folk as battering, as intolerable, and can provoke anger, fear, and yes, even guilt. White fragility, as conceived by antiracist activist and educational theorist  Robin DiAngelo, at times leads folks to argue, to retreat into silence, or simply to exit a stressful situation" (98). 

To help folks get better educated, Dyson does offer a very extensive reading list in the "Benediction" chapter. 

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This book qualifies for the following 2017 Reading Challenges: