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Cover of RACE TO INNOVATION

RACE TO INNOVATION

by diverse entrepreneurs and innovators, and “accelerating transformative change” to “seize opportunities, grow, and build value at an accelerated pace.” In these pages, Bamforth and Zwahlen and their guest contributors employ a number of formats, from bulleted summaries to industry case studies to interviews with innovators, to flesh out these basic principles.This varied approach makes the book smoothly readable. The authors effectively buttress their broader thoughts on diversity and entrepreneurship with specific examples, including profiles of some of the many people doing the work on the ground. They tell the story of Marcus Whitney, for instance, the co\u002Dstarter of a fund for health care startups who angrily corresponded with the Nashville Health Care Leadership Council about its lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020. “How is it possible,” Whitney asks, addressing institutional racial imbalances, “that the nation’s leading healthcare services cluster has generated incredible wealth for White people in Nashville but no meaningful wealth for Nashville’s Black community?” Bamforth and Zwahlen also profile Shuchin Shukla, a son of Indian immigrants who served in rural, impoverished communities in Appalachia ravaged by the opioid epidemic. “His level of talent and commitment,” the authors write, nodding to the advantages of diversity, “could not have been recruited without a hands\u002Don, deeply embedded approach to ideation and problem\u002Dsolving.” Bamforth and Zwahlen also skillfully incorporate brief vignettes from the history of diversity struggles, such as the “fight of the century” between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling in 1938, which Louis won in a knockout (“The celebrations in Black neighborhoods lasted for days”). Running throughout all these stories, carefully highlighted by the authors but never overstressed, are “associations between diversity, innovation, and performance.” Readers not as enthused about the subject as Bamforth and Zwahlen may find some of those associations a bit elusive, but the powerful examples found on virtually every page combine to form a convincing argument that inclusion and equity are practical keys to improving entrepreneurship for all communities."

Cover of RADICAL DREAMERS

RADICAL DREAMERS

by President Donald Trump, which, the author argues, in its narrow support for private and parochial schools, “compounds past injustices.” He is similarly critical of the Democratic Party’s blind defense of public school policies that “sustain failure and confine students of color to underperforming public schools.” Advocating for school choice through the progressive lenses of Edmonds, Coons, Ravitch, Fuller, and a host of grassroots Black activists, Viteritti makes a well\u002Dresearched case for charter schools that is backed by more than 560 scholarly endnotes. Despite its academic bona fides, this is an accessible work from the perspective of an activist who has long been in the trenches of public education."

Cover of REFLECTIONS OF HONYOCKER

REFLECTIONS OF HONYOCKER

by shadowy agencies and conspirators with baroque names, such as Baridi Rappaccini, Adjuster Number Two, and Raff Maunder, among others. Their motives involve technology that allows wormhole manipulation and the suppression (or exposure) of secrets that seem too strange for conventional reality. Via narrators such as Reardon Pareidolia and Dejado Abandonado, Fulstone dramatizes a world where paranoia is indistinguishable from truth, and where every revelation seems to be a delusion. As the story advances, the files grow more unstable: Peregrino, a doctor, writes an unnerving letter blending maritime anecdotes with apocalyptic visions, capped by a grotesque poem\u003B John Marcher (adopting the name of Henry James’ disabled protagonist from the 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle) wonders whether all that preceded his section was simply the product of psychiatric confinement. The novel thus destabilizes its own foundations, suggesting that its extravagant tales of interdimensional travel, conspiracies, and abductions may be nothing more—or less—than the visions of the institutionalized. Fulstone’s strengths lie in his work’s tonal and conceptual daring. The work gleefully mixes pulp tropes with literary allusions, invoking Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, and Vladimir Nabokov in its labyrinthine layering, and the metafictional design—documents within documents, voices contradicting each other—creates an atmosphere of constant instability. The proliferation of aliases, shadowy agencies, and surreal conspiracies verges on incoherence, and shifts from satirical parody to grotesque horror may further alienate readers\u003B a disturbing poem invoking “naked women and children” as corpses, for instance, feels more gratuitous than illuminating. The narrative’s climax disperses rather than focuses the narrative, raising provocative questions but declining to pursue them with discipline. Still, this unsettling work’s messy audacity, refusal of closure, and hall\u002Dof\u002Dmirrors voice\u002Dplay will ensure that even frustrated readers won’t forget it."5.0/5(2)

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