AP/Khalil Hamra via the Nation
The Politics of Life
"As an anthropologist, he is trained to look for and respect differences, both between cultures and individuals. As a medical doctor, he knows what all human bodies have in common and the mortality that we ultimately face. And as a philosopher, he seems ready to ask whether our infinitely diverse particulars might be gathered up—if not into something universal, then at least in a pattern, into something that might resemble the plot of a novel."
Writing for the Nation, Bruce Robbins reviews Life: A Critical User's Manual (Polity Press, 2018) by Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science.
