Top works includes ‘Behave’ by Stanford’s Robert Sapolsky
Here are the five works of nonfiction that most held our attention in 2017:
“BEHAVE: THE BIOLOGY OF HUMANS AT OUR BEST AND WORST” >> by Robert M. Sapolsky (Penguin Press, $35, 800 pages). If you ever thought that neuroscience was too boring or complicated for pleasurable reading, “Behave” will change your mind. You’ll find yourself guffawing at Sapolsky’s quirky humor, and you’ll begin to question whether that decision you made so many years ago not to go into the sciences might have been too hasty. A professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, Sapolsky brings together a variety of scientific disciplines to tackle a fundamental mystery: What drives humans to harm each other or help each other? He finds the answers in our biology and takes readers on a journey through the nervous system, hormones, evolution and the environment. For any layperson who wants to understand why we behave the way we do, Sapolsky has created an immensely readable, often hilarious romp through the worlds of psychology, primatology, sociology and neurobiology.
“THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: HOW TOTALITARIANISM RECLAIMED RUSSIA” >> by Masha Gessen (Riverhead, $28, 528 pages). Vladimir Putin has inspired a number of books seeking to explain his remarkable rise — and his remarkable hold on power. Few accounts are as ambitious, insightful and unsparing as Gessen’s “The Future Is History.” This is a sweeping intellectual history of Russia over the past four decades, told through a Tolstoyan gallery of characters. It makes a convincing if depressing case that Homo Sovieticus, the unique species created a century ago with the Bolshevik Revolution, did not die out along with the Soviet Union. What makes the book so worthwhile are its keen observations about Russia from the point of view of those experiencing its heavy-handed state. Gessen’s provocative conclusion that Putin’s Russia is just as much a totalitarian society as Stalin’s Soviet Union or Hitler’s Germany may not convince all readers. But you don’t need to agree with this assessment to find her book a sad, compelling indictment of the country where she was born, a country so traumatized by its monstrous past that it seems intent on repeating it.
“I CAN’T BREATHE: A KILLING ON BAY STREET” >> by Matt Taibbi (Spiegel & Grau, $28, 336 pages). This gutwrenching account of the death and life of Eric Garner is a deep dive into every aspect of the case, including its legal impact, which is minimal, and its cultural and political ones, which have been profound. Most revealing are the stories Taibbi tells about other African-Americans, mostly male and poor, who were stopped and frisked, strip-searched, sexually assaulted, set up, beaten or killed for the tragic reason that racist cops didn’t like them or the even more tragic one that those kinds of humiliations are ordained by U.S. law and policy. The stories relate to one another and to the Garner case, which gives “I Can’t Breathe” the feel of a police procedural. The narrative unfolds like an episode of “The Wire” but without the comic relief — or the show’s grudging empathy for the cops. Some readers might object to Taibbi’s tone of sustained outrage. But the author is mad as hell at the police and the politics that empower their brutality.
“I WAS TOLD TO COME ALONE: MY JOURNEY BEHIND THE LINES OF JIHAD” >> by Souad Mekhennet (Henry Holt, $30, 368 pages). In her memoir of 15 years of covering jihadists, journalist Mekhennet sets out to answer a perennial question: Why do they hate us? As a Muslim woman and brave, resourceful reporter who speaks English, German, French and Arabic, Mekhennet seems well-suited to the task. She explains the nature of reporting on jihad in her role as a Washington Post national security correspondent, the time spent waiting for sources to call back, puzzling over whom to trust. On several occasions, she gets anonymous tips about imminent danger to her life and whether militants or hostile governments intend to kidnap, torture or rape her. Her portrayals of al-Qaida and Islamic State fighters and sympathizers in countries around the world make her memoir a work of significant merit. But what of her original question? In her telling, the root of hate is not Islam; it’s not U.S. politics or foreign policy, nor is it American racism or Islamophobia. The answer is elusive and troublingly mysterious.
“RISING STAR: THE MAKING OF BARACK OBAMA” >> by David J. Garrow (William Morrow, $45, 1,472 pages). This probing doorstop of a biography explores the calculations Barack Obama made in the decades leading up to winning the presidency. Garrow portrays Obama as a man who ruthlessly compartmentalized his existence and made emotional sacrifices in the pursuit of his goal. Every step — whether his foray into community organizing, Harvard Law School, even his choice of whom to love — was not just about living a life but also about fulfilling a destiny. The book is most revealing in its account of Obama’s personal life, particularly the tale of a woman of Dutch and Japanese ancestry the future president lived with before he met Michelle. After asking her to marry him, Obama had a change of heart. As Garrow puts it, for black politicians in Chicago, a non-African-American spouse could be a liability. Garrow, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., concludes with a damning verdict on Obama’s determination: “While the crucible of self-creation had produced an ironclad will, the vessel was hollow at its core.”