US Politics
Barbara Keys reviews 'Playing with Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics' by Lawrence O’Donnell
It was the year an American presidential candidate declared: ‘We got too much dignity in government now; what we need is some meanness.’ Even without this call to arms, meanness was abundant. A prominent journalist, on live television, derided a rival as a ‘queer’ and harangued him ...
... (read more)Gideon Haigh reviews 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' by Michael Wolff
In his new account of Donald Trump’s presidency, Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff describes how Trump’s ‘adviser’ Steve Bannon counselled fellow White House newbies to read The Best and The Brightest as preparation for their administration’s tasks. Rarely for the mordant Bannon, his enthusiasm for David Halberstam’s 1972 classic ...
... (read more)Andrew Broertjes reviews 'Richard Nixon: The life' by John A. Farrell
Richard Nixon remains one of America’s most intriguing presidents (1969–74). Intelligent, shrewd, and possessing a keen sense of the public mood, Nixon represented the ideal presidential model. His grasp of foreign policy has been unmatched by his successors, and his domestic policies represented the last hurrah of ‘New Deal'...
... (read more)Max Holleran reviews 'Democracy in Chains: The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan' for America by Nancy MacLean
On 12 August 2017 a mob of neo-Nazis descended on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, chanting racial epithets while openly carrying rifles and pistols. Many of the participants were from groups that advocate not just racial supremacy but the end of the US federal government, which they see as tyrannical ...
... (read more)David Fettling reviews 'Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s decline: From Obama to Trump and beyond' by Gideon Rachman
Competing with Middle Eastern wars, terrorist attacks, and presidential tweets, Asia still tends to receive less attention than it merits. Furthermore, while geopolitical tectonic-shifts are occurring in the Indo-Pacific, it can be difficult to step back from daily headlines to assess the current transformation in its entirety. In Easternization, Gideon Rachman ...
... (read more)Varun Ghosh reviews 'Audacity: How Barack Obama defied his critics and created a legacy that will prevail' by Jonathan Chait and 'We Are The Change We Seek: The speeches of Barack Obama' edited by E.J. Dionne Jr and Joy-Ann Reid
What is Barack Obama’s legacy? That deceptively simple question forms the subject of Jonathan Chait’s new book ...
... (read more)James McNamara reviews 'Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus' by Matt Taibbi and 'How The Hell Did This Happen? The Election of 2016' by P.J. O’Rourke
Beneath a frantic veneer of normalcy, American politics is not okay. It is as if Punch and Judy have careened out of a dive bar, tripped down the rabbit hole, smashed head-first through the looking glass, and found themselves running all three branches of government. Core to this is that unlikely combination of words, President Donald Trump.
...David Smith reviews 'The Making of Donald Trump' by David Cay Johnston
This is an angry book. David Cay Johnston has been doing investigative reporting on Donald Trump's business practices for nearly three decades, and this book is a compilation of ...
... (read more)James McNamara reviews 'Dark Money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right' by Jane Mayer
When I arrived in America, green card in hand, I soon got down to my favourite pastime: discussing politics over grain-based liquor. I was surprised to find that President Barack ...
... (read more)Politics is personal in the United States, far more private than it appears from outside. When political allegiance becomes tied to character, revealing one reveals the other ...
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