A review of James Cairns’ “In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times”

A review of James Cairns’ “In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times”

James Cairns’ collection of essays begins by examining the questions one would expect from an academic book on “crisis”: What is a crisis? Who defines a crisis? Why is this considered a crisis, but not that? The answers are not simple. For Cairns — an avid reader of fiction and professor of political theory and