Big Babies: Vintage Whines

by Michael Kinsley

The babies of the title are American voters who, the left-leaning pundit says, complain bitterly about politicians but at bottom are themselves to blame for our current democratic discontents. They join many other targets three presidencies and several campaigns, the conservative political climate, and even some non-political topics in this collection of Kinsley's essays from the past 10 years in The New Yorker, Time, The New Republic, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Lacks an index. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Genres: Politics, Journalism, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Michael Kinsley is a columnist for Time and a past editor of The New Republic, Harper's, and Slate. His writing has also appeared in The Economist, The New Yorker, and many other publications.

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very dated; a collection of columns and essays written before and immediately after the Bush-Clinton election in 1992. Obviously stuff sits for a long time on my bookshelf. What's interesting is how Kinsley's writing shows how little the political dialogue has changed. It's more caustic, more mean-spirited now, but the issues are strikingly similar: the false "war" on Christians, the racism of so much "law and order" demagoguery....etc. Kinsley's sharp writing is witty, pointed and breezes along at a nice slip.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of his columns, written for various publications - I had been enjoying him in Time Magazine for quite awhile when I got this book. Great stuff. Though I read it years ago, his observations have stuck with me and still inform the way I assess politics. (P.S. The "babies" of the title are us - the voters, not the politicians, as I had originally assumed.)