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This page was last modified on 29 December 2024.
| POLITICS |
This is a difficult category to limit. There are books purely devoted to politics, of course. One prime example would be Do Not Ask What Good We Do (reviewed here), which describes the operation of the 112th Congress in great detail. But politics concerns itself with all areas of life: religion, science, law, and more. Many of the books I review deal intensively with scientific matters. But if they touch on the increasingly common politicization of science, they will be found here. The exception is books that discuss religion and politics. I put those in the newly created RELIGION category. |
| PRINCIPAL AUTHOR |
TITLE (Linked to review) |
RATING (0-5) |
REVIEW DATE |
ONE-LINE DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acosta, Jim | The Enemy of the People | 4.5 | 6/30/2019 | White House correspondent Acosta tells us of his battle against the damage the Trump administration is doing. |
| Alterman, Eric | The Book on Bush | 5.0 | 5/05/2004 | Read this wide-ranging, convincingly documented criticism of the administration of George W. Bush before the November elections. |
| Amato, John | Over the Cliff | 5.0 | 11/14/2011 | Two veterans of political blogging document the right-wing extremism that arose following President Obama's election. |
| Anderson, Carol | One Person, No Vote | 5.0 | 10/23/2020 | Racial bigots have never given up their quest to disenfranchise black voters, as Carol Anderson shows us here. |
| Anonymous | A Warning | 5.0 | 2/20/2020 | This anonymous senior administration official shows us an insider's view of Trump's dysfunctional reign. |
| Asner, Ed | The Grouchy Historian | 5.0 | 1/23/2018 | In his first book, the star of Lou Grant defends the Constitution and refutes the right-wing. |
| Bender, Michael C. | "Frankly, We Did Win this Election" | 5.0 | 1/24/2022 | The Wall Street Journal's senior White House reporter lays bare the mistakes and misdirections of Trump's losing 2020 campaign. |
| Berezow, Alex B. | Science Left Behind | 5.0 | 5/18/2015 | Berezow and Campbell attempt to establish that "progressives" (read: liberals or Democrats) are just as unscientific as conservatives. They fail. |
| Bloomberg, Michael | Climate of Hope | 5.0 | 4/26/2018 | Environmentalist Carl Pope and financier Michael Bloomberg team up to tell us about the upside of combatting climate change. |
| Bradley, Raymond S. | Global Warming and Political Intimidation | 4.5 | 7/05/2014 | The second member of the scientific team that produced MBH98 & MBH99, the "Hockey Stick" papers, weighs in here with his own account of political meddling with their work by members of Congress. |
| Bruni, Frank | Ambling into History | 4.5 | 10/27/2004 | Based on months on the campaign trail with Bush during the 2000 election season, Bruni's "reporter's notebook" account shows us both the candidate's character flaws and occasional flashes of greater ability. |
| Bryant, Nick | When America Stopped Being Great | 5.0 | 2/20/2022 | Britisher Bryant ably reviews American political history since Nixon, showing us the slow descent into mediocrity. |
| Carville, James | Take it Back | 5.0 | 11/23/2006 | Democratic Party stalwarts Carville & Begala set forth a strategy to aid their party in winning elections — a skill they justifiably claim it has lost. |
| Chandrasekaran, Rajiv | Imperial Life in the Emerald City | 5.0 | 2/10/2007 | Veteran Washington Post reporter Chandrasekaran lives in Iraq, but penetrates the American bubble that is the Green Zone. He shows us what's inside it — and how it came to be. |
| Chayes, Sarah | Thieves of State | 5.0 | 9/03/2017 | A long-time resident of Afghanistan, and familiar with many Middle Eastern countries, analyst Sarah Chayes tells it like it is. |
| Clarke, Richard A. | Against All Enemies | 5.0 | 12/02/2005 | Former National Security Coordinator Richard Clarke tells what was broken when the planes hit the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. |
| Conason, Joe | Big Lies | 5.0 | 3/08/2010 | Joe Conason delivers a very thorough dissection of the lies, hypocrisy and sheer short-sightedness which most Republican politicians of late cannot seem to rise above. |
| Crier, Catherine | Contempt | 4.0 | 12/27/2005 | Ms Crier, a former Republican judge in Texas, warns us that the Religious Right, now in control of Congress and the White House, is trying for the federal judicial system. |
| Crier, Catherine | Patriot Acts | 5.0 | 12/27/2011 | Forthright and insightful as always, Ms Crier provides a cogent new analysis of what's wrong with the Right and how they attempt to govern our American republic. |
| Crier, Catherine | The Case against Lawyers | 5.0 | 3/09/2014 | Not a condemnation of lawyers per se, this is rather a discussion of the ways in which money — in the form of legal fees or campaign contributions — distorts our democracy. |
| Davidson, Osha Gray | Under Fire | 5.0 | 10/07/1997 | Inside the NRA in its battle against all forms of gun control |
| Dawson, Ashley | Extreme Cities | 4.0 | 04/12/2018 | Professor Dawson examines the efforts of New York, NY and other coastal cities to adapt to rising sea levels, and promotes policies that better support long-term sustainability. |
| Dean, John | Worse than Watergate | 4.0 | 12/15/2005 | John Dean, convicted in the Watergate scandal, here compares George W. Bush's administration to the Nixon White House in which he served — and finds Bush comes off second best. |
| Dean, John | Conservatives without Conscience | 5.0 | 2/04/2007 | Increasingly troubled by the damage to our democracy done by the neocons, John Dean investigates the roots of their movement and profiles its current principal players. |
| Draper, Robert | Do Not Ask What Good We Do | 5.0 | 7/19/2014 | A contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, Draper gives us a microscopically detailed insider account of the 112th Congress. |
| Draper, Robert | Weapons of Mass Delusion | 5.0 | 8/17/2023 | Probing the beliefs, words and actions of Republican members of the 112th Congress, Robert Draper lays bare the parlous condition of American politics today. |
| Estrich, Susan | Soulless | 3.5 | 7/06/2014 | A noted feminist writer delivers a critique of Ann Coulter that is part admiration, part denigration. |
| Fein, Ron | The Constitution Demands It | 5.0 | 11/08/2018 | These three authors present a detailed and well organized case that the known misconduct by Trump should bring his impeachment. |
| Frank, Thomas | Listen, Liberal | 5.0 | 9/18/2016 | Thomas Frank now shifts his gaze to the neoliberal crew, and documents their abdication of the title of "Party of the People." |
| Frank, Thomas | Pity the Billionaire | 5.0 | 11/12/2013 | In his third volume on the resurgent Right, Frank dissects the Tea Party and, at the end, shows Democrats including President Obama what they're doing wrong. |
| Frank, Thomas | Rendezvous with Oblivion | 4.5 | 6/28/2019 | The essays in Frank's collection touch on very important issues in education and politics. |
| Frank, Thomas | What's the Matter with Kansas? | 5.0 | 6/24/2019 | This in-depth analysis of how Kansans jumped their groove is Thomas Frank's magnum opus. |
| Franken, Al | Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell them | 4.0 | 6/12/2004 | Al Franken's comedic style doesn't translate well to print. And the book has some flaws. Despite that, it conveys some vital messages about the political right — and will make you chortle as well. |
| Franken, Al | The Truth (with Jokes) | 5.0 | 3/06/2010 | Al Franken (now Senator Franken) has a real tour de force in this one. Many books expose and debunk the deceptive and greedy practices of some of today's politicians. Franken eviscerates those practices. |
| Freddoso, David | The Case Against Barack Obama | 4.0 | 11/03/2008 | David Freddoso's critique of Obama's character and career is mostly accurate, but contains some distortions that betray the author's right-wing bias. |
| Frum, David | Trumpocracy | 4.0 | 03/20/2018 | David Frum examines the corruption Trump has brought to America's political system. |
| Gibney, Bruce | A Generation of Sociopaths | 3.5 | 2/09/2018 | Former lawyer blames baby boomers for everything that's wrong with America. |
| Gingrich, Newt | Winning the Future | 4.0 | 1/16/2006 | Georgia Republican politician Gingrich has written a campaign book. |
| Gladstone, Brooke | The Trouble with Reality | 3.5 | 2/07/2018 | Co-host of NPR's On the Media ruminates on the quandary of reality versus Trump. |
| Goldberg, Bernard | 100 People Who are Screwing up America | 4.0 | 4/10/2008 | Everyone has a little list (they never will be missed.) Here is Bernie's. |
| Gordon, Rebecca | American Nuremberg | 5.0 | 8/28/2016 | Rebecca Gordon shows us the origin of war-crimes-law concepts, and documents that the U.S. juggernaut continues to roll over them. |
| Goreham, Steve | Climatism! | 2.0 | 7/19/2012 | Goreham, holder of MSEE and MBA degrees, tries to debunk the mainstream view of climate change. He fails in standard fashion — which makes this a polemic. But, reading it, you will learn something about the subject. |
| Hacker, Jacob S. | Off Center | 5.0 | 11/13/2006 | Two professors of political science dissect the Republican revolution. |
| Harbury, Jennifer K. | Truth, Torture, and the American Way | 5.0 | 3/07/2021 | Long involvement "on the ground" opposing torture in Guatemala and elsewhere gives Jennifer Harbury's essential work the ring of truth. |
| Harding, Luke | Collusion | 5.0 | 3/11/2018 | Harding, a veteran Russia hand for The Guardian, draws on the Steele Dossier and other sources to give us a hard-hitting account of the case for collusion. |
| Hedges, Chris | The World As It Is | 5.0 | 6/06/2011 | A series of pull-no-punches essays on politics and governing from the author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. |
| Hersh, Seymour | Chain of Command | 5.0 | 11/10/2005 | Reporter Seymour Hersh shows he's still in top form as he documents the origins and possible aftermaths of the Pentagon's flawed "War on Terror". |
| Hertsgaard, Mark | Bravehearts | 5.0 | 10/28/2016 | Whistle-blowers have always had a tough row to hoe, and Mark Hertsgaard shows us that is still true now, when it matters more than ever. |
| Hickman, Joseph | Murder at Camp Delta | 5.0 | 8/01/2015 | While at Guantánamo, Staff Sergeant Hickman saw troubling breakdowns of military order and discipline. Then he saw what looked like murder. His long struggle for corroborating evidence is documented in this gripping first-person account. |
| Hoggan, James | Climate Cover-Up | 5.0 | 4/17/2010 | Public relations, or PR, has been debased in the battle over climate change. PR professional James Hoggan explains how and by whom. |
| Holtzman, Elizabeth | The Case for Impeaching Trump | 5.0 | 7/30/2019 | A member of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, Elizabeth Holtzman has assembled a strong circumstantial case against Trump. |
| Horner, Christopher | The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming | 3.0 | 11/20/2007 | Here's another entry in the continuing campaign of Global Warming Denial. Its reasoning is as defective as others of its kind I have seen, but it is fairly well written. |
| Horwitz, Jeff | Broken Code | 4.5 | 12/29/2024 | Jeff Horwitz, technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal, reports on his two-year investigation of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. |
| Huskey, Kristine A. | Justice at Guantánamo | 5.0 | 12/20/2014 | A gripping account of Ms. Huskey's growth from aspiring fashion model to dedicated human-rights attorney fighting for Gitmo detainees. |
| Isikoff, Michael | Russian Roulette | 5.0 | 4/09/2018 | Veteran journalists Isikoff & Corn document what's known of the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia, complementing Harding's book on collusion. |
| Isikoff, Michael | Find Me the Votes | 5.0 | 3/31/2024 | Isikoff & Klaidman document Fulton County DA Fani Willis's prosecution of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 Georgia election. |
| Ivins, Molly | Shrub | 5.0 | 10/16/2000 | Famously forthright columnist Molly Ivins' possibly biased analysis of George W. Bush's record as governor of Texas |
| Ivins, Molly | Bushwhacked | 5.0 | 12/19/2005 | More from famously forthright columnist Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose on George W. Bush's record |
| Jamieson, Kathleen Hall | Cyberwar | 5.0 | 8/14/2021 | A scholarly and very thorough analysis of the case that Russians interfered in our 2016 presidential election. |
| Johnston, David Cay | Perfectly Legal | 5.0 | 6/27/2004 | This analysis of the tax code and its exploiters grew out of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigation that Johnston did for the New York Times. ** WARNING! ** It may cause your fists to clench. |
| Johnston, David Cay | It's Even Worse than You Think | 5.0 | 2/20/2018 | Following up on The Making of Donald Trump, Johnston documents Trump performing in office exactly as expected. |
| Jones, Matt | Mitch, Please! | 5.0 | 7/19/2020 | Exploring whether to run against Mitch McConnell in 2020, Matt Jones also explores the Bluegrass State in a ten-week 2019 road trip. |
| Kendzior, Sarah | Hiding in Plain Sight | 5.0 | 6/19/2020 | Appaled by the Trump administration's corruption and hostility to democratic ideals, Sarah Kendzior strives to wake up the American public to the danger. |
| Kovalik, Dan | The Case for Palestine | 5.0 | 7/14/2024 | Human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik exposes Israel's long history of abuses in the Palestinian terroritories. |
| Kunstler, James Howard | The Long Emergency | 4.0 | 9/26/2012 | This is Kunstler's warning to a profligate country (and world) he sees as teetering on the edge of catastrophe, with its misused energy and financial systems about to collapse. |
| Kunstler, James Howard | Too Much Magic | 4.0 | 7/19/2012 | In his 2005 The Long Emergency, Kunstler forecasted the sorts of things that he sees happening today: namely the collapse of global energy and financial systems. Now, he pessimistically prognosticates that America will never adapt and will undergo radical changes as a result. |
| Kuttner, Robert | A Presidency in Peril | 5.0 | 8/08/2010 | Robert Kuttner gives us a tour de force explaining why President Obama has disappointed his base on the economic recovery — and how he can recover. |
| Lapham, Lewis | Pretensions to Empire | 5.0 | 12/21/2007 | In a lively collection of essays, longtime journalist Lapham opines on current politics, popular culture, and the shortcomings of the Bush administration. |
| Lardner, James | Inequality Matters | 5.0 | 9/13/2013 | Growing out of a 2004 conference, this compendium of essays on the problem of wealth inequality in America is dated but still essential reading. |
| Lee, Bandy | The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump | 5.0 | 1/11/2018 | Dr. Lee has assembled a panel of mental-health professionals to assess Trump's fitness for the Oval Office. Their essays appear here. |
| Leonnig, Carol | I Alone Can Fix It | 5.0 | 3/21/2022 | The second book on Trump by Rucker and Leonnig is a deep look at Trump's final disastrous year in the Oval Office. |
| Levitan, Dave | Not a Scientist | 5.0 | 12/13/2018 | This is an excellent guide to science disinformation perpetrated by recent U.S. politicians. |
| Lewis, Michael | The Fifth Risk | 5.0 | 12/10/2018 | Narratives about civil servants whose mission-driven careers the Trump transition disrupts make this book a standout. |
| Lewis, Michael | The Premonition | 5.0 | 8/07/2021 | Before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a rogue group of medical professionals fought to get the federal government moving on the problem. |
| Lichtman, Allan J. | The Case for Impeachment | 5.0 | 2/15/2018 | Professor Lichtman reviews the historical record of previous impeachments and assesses Donald Trump's misbehavior in that light. |
| Loesch, Dana | Flyover Nation | 3.0 | 8/14/2017 | Dana Loesch has a book worth reading, but her conservative blinders make the factual arguments extremely annoying. |
| Loewenstein, Anthony | The Palestine Laboratory | 5.0 | 12/23/2024 | A deep look into Israel's sales of armaments and surveillance software to all comers, and the danger this poses for the world.. |
| Luce, Edward | Time to Start Thinking | 5.0 | 10/20/2013 | Journalist Edward Luce indicts the current state of everything that made America great in this deservedly harsh critique. |
| MacLean, Nancy | Democracy in Chains | 5.0 | 8/20/2018 | Nancy MacLean exposes the stealthy quest of "conservatives" to subvert American democracy and perpetuate their privileges. |
| Maddow, Rachel | Blowout | 5.0 | 9/28/2022 | Rachel Maddow plumbs the depths of the damage the oil industry's clout lets it escape accountability for. |
| Maguire, Joe | Brainless | 4.5 | 4/12/2007 | See the threadbare thinking of hard-right icon Ann Coulter dissolve under journalist Joe Maquire's trenchant analysis. |
| Mallaby, Sebastian | The World's Banker | 5.0 | 2/15/2006 | A lively profile of the World Bank and the complicated man who ran it for a decade starting in 1995. |
| Mann, Michael E. | The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars | 5.0 | 8/15/2014 | Dr. Mann, one of the principal targets of the bogus campaign against the reality of climate change, shows why that campaign is bogus. |
| Mann, Michael E. | The Madhouse Effect | 5.0 | 10/13/2016 | Michael Mann teams up with Tom Toles to explain, in clear and concise terms, what climate change is and why it matters. |
| Mann, Michael E. | The New Climate War | 5.0 | 6/10/2021 | The tactics used by the Denialists have changed, Dr. Mann advises us. |
| Mann, Michael E. | Our Fragile Moment | 5.0 | 10/30/2023 | Dr. Mann guides us here through the basics of climate science, and gives us reason to keep the faith. |
| Margulies, Joseph | Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power | 5.0 | 8/24/2008 | The Bush administration's treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo defies both law and logic, as attorney Joseph Margulies reveals in this gripping account. |
| Mayer, Jane | Dark Money | 5.0 | 6/19/2016 | Here's the scoop on how Republican mostly undisclosed wealth influences elections across the USA. |
| McCabe, Andrew G. | The Threat | 3.5 | 4/04/2019 | Former FBI deputy director McCabe gives us another vital inside look at the train wreck that is the Trump administration. |
| McClellan, Scott | What Happened | 3.5 | 2/27/2010 | Scott McClellan tells us what was wrong with the Bush administration, as he saw it. |
| Miller, Greg | The Apprentice | 5.0 | 8/18/2023 | This is one of the clearest accounts of how Trump disrupted the operations of the federal government, the standing of the United States, and his own future.. |
| Miller, Todd | Storming the Wall | 5.0 | 7/24/2019 | The century-defining conflict between militant defense of borders and the tradition of welcoming immigrants is laid bare by Todd Miller. |
| Mooney, Chris | The Republican War on Science | 5.0 | 3/26/2010 | Here's a documentation of Republican depredations against science that's more thorough and wide-ranging than Seth Shulman's excellent work. |
| Nader, Ralph | The Good Fight | 4.5 | 10/15/2004 | Consumer advocate Ralph Nader continues his long battle for the public good. An Appendix, The Conscious Voter, reminds us how easily an inattentive electorate can be hoodwinked. |
| Nader, Ralph | To the Ramparts | 5.0 | 6/09/2019 | Analyzing the reasons for Trump's success, Nader concludes the Democratic Party bears much of the blame. |
| Nader, Ralph | Whistle Blowing | 5.0 | 5/11/2011 | A dated but comprehensive look at whistle-blowers and the abuses that motivated them in 1972. It's, like, nowsville, man! |
| Nesbit, Jeff | Poison Tea | 5.0 | 10/02/2022 | From an insider's perspective, Jeff Nesbit probes the people and groups behind the shape-shifting Republican power grab. |
| O'Hanlon, Michael | Neither Star Wars nor Sanctuary | 5.0 | 11/12/2004 | An excellent layman's introduction to the timely subject of military space policy. |
| Oliphant, Thomas | Utter Incompetents | 5.0 | 2/23/2010 | Tom Oliphant, a Boston Globe columnist, examines the Bush administration on 16 performance areas and finds it wanting in all of them. |
| Oreskes, Naomi | Merchants of Doubt | 5.0 | 8/25/2010 | Decade after decade, from smoking & lung cancer to carbon dioxide & global warming, a few misguided ideologues have done their utmost to confuse the public about the seriousness of problems. Now, science historian Oreskes and NASA physicist Conway team up to set the record straight. |
| O'Rourke, P. J. | How the Hell Did this Happen? | 1.5 | 6/11/2017 | O'Rourke disses the 2016 electoral process and all the presidential candidates who took part in it (except Jill Stein, whom he misses rather than disses.) |
| Pomerantsev, Peter | Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible | 4.5 | 1/06/2019 | Russian expatriate TV documentarian Pomerantsev paints a dire and depressing picture of Putin's oligarchy. |
| Pooley, Eric | The Climate War | 5.0 | 7/14/2010 | A lively and engrossing account of the last three years in the ongoing political struggle to get a handle on climate change |
| Pope, Carl | Strategic Ignorance | 5.0 | 9/30/2004 | The Sierra Club's Executive Director has produced a devastating critique of the Bush administration record of protecting the environment. |
| Press, Bill | Toxic Talk | 5.0 | 1/15/2011 | Talk radio today is 90 percent right-wing. Bill Press examines how it got that way, and shows us the disappointing result. |
| Press, Bill | Train Wreck | 5.0 | 1/20/2010 | Press documents the failure of the modern conservative movement with abundant facts and figures, and traces its origin in history. |
| Press, Bill | Trump Must Go | 5.0 | 8/31/2019 | A well-researched bill of particulars listing Trump's operational impediments. |
| Rich, Nathaniel | Losing Earth | 4.5 | 5/04/2019 | We lost a crucial decade in the fight against climate change. Nathaniel Rich tells us how. |
| Richardson, Heather Cox | Democracy Awakening | 5.0 | 1/01/2024 | An American historian documents how Trump corrupted democracy, what led up to his reign of error, and how we can recover. |
| Ricks, Thomas E. | Fiasco | 5.0 | 6/09/2008 | Veteran Pentagon correspondent Ricks documents the U.S. military's blunders in its current occupation of Iraq. |
| Riemen, Rob | To Fight Against this Age | 4.0 | 3/11/2019 | A meditation on Fascism and whether it might return. Disappointingly Euro-centric; perhaps it's better in the original Dutch. |
| Rohde, David | Beyond War | 5.0 | 10/16/2013 | America's Middle-East policy needs more face-to-face engagement and more entrepreneurial dollars, not more drones, Rohde says. |
| Rose, David | Guantánamo | 5.0 | 11/05/2013 | This is probably the original exposé of the injustices perpetrated by the GW Bush administration at our base on Cuba. |
| Rucker, Philip | A Very Stable Genius | 5.0 | 8/12/2020 | A very detailed examination of Trump's reign of error through 2019. |
| Rushkoff, Douglas | Life Inc. | 5.0 | 6/14/2010 | Rushkoff, a prominent media critic, provides a penetrating analysis of corporate executives' continuing quest to acquire legal personhood for their firms — while natural persons, beset on all sides by rampant commercialism, act less and less like real people. |
| Sanders, Bernie | It's OK To Be Angry about Capitalism | 5.0 | 5/14/2023 | Senator Bernie Sanders continues pushing to promote the general welfare. Here are his latest arguments. |
| Sands, Philippe | Lawless World | 5.0 | 1/31/2006 | The complexity and difficulty of making and adhering to international treaties are well described in this account of recent developments in the field — as is America's short-sighted refusal to adhere to such norms of behavior. |
| Scammell, Henry | Giantkillers | 5.0 | 11/11/2004 | A gripping account of several hard-fought victories by whistle-blowers against greedy companies in the defense and health-care industries |
| Sharlet, Jeff | The Undertow | 5.0 | 8/11/2024 | On an extensive fact-finding tour through rural America, Jeff Sharlet finds widespread simmering unrest. |
| Shenkman, Rick | Just How Stupid Are We? | 4.0 | 6/11/2009 | Shenkman's examination of the American body politic finds it wanting of wit and will. |
| Sherman, Paul | Look Away | 5.0 | 6/06/2022 | The crudity of the election materials used by the Trump campaign in 2016 is unprecedented. Paul Sherman documents them here. |
| Singer, S. Fred | Unstoppable Global Warming | 1.0 | 8/23/2014 | Tag-team Denialists Avery & Singer have cooked up another batch of climate-pother stew. |
| Smith, Clive Stafford | Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side | 5.0 | 5/19/2010 | At Guantánamo, explains British attorney Clive Smith, justice was often a shell game. |
| Snell, Tristan | Taking Down Trump | 5.0 | 2/12/2024 | The man who, as AAG in the State of New York, took down Trump University, shares his views on how to handle other cases. |
| Solomon, Norman | War Made Easy | 5.0 | 10/15/2005 | Norman Solomon explains how a president can have a war whenever he wants — for good reasons or bad. |
| Stevens, Stuart | It Was All a Lie | 5.0 | 9/25/2020 | Long-time Republican consultant abjures the self-destructive racism of the party he served — and here he tells us why. |
| Stevens, Stuart | The Conspiracy To End America | 5.0 | 12/17/2023 | Donald Trump, aided by Republicans, failed in 2021 to hang on to the power of the presidency after losing a fair election to Joe Biden in 2020. But Trump, and the Party he now owns, have not given up. |
| Street, Paul | Barack Obama | 4.5 | 4/29/2009 | A counterpoise to David Freddoso's book about Obama is provided by progressive historian Paul Street, who also thinks our new president is no messiah. |
| Suskind, Ron | The Price of Loyalty | 5.0 | 12/20/2005 | Alcoa CEO Paul O'Neill was lured back into government service. He became Treasury Secretary because he knew he could make a difference. However, his reality-based approach did not mesh well with the administration of George W. Bush. |
| Suskind, Ron | The One Percent Doctrine | 5.0 | 2/25/2007 | Veteran journalist Ron Suskind takes an unblinking look at the "War on Terror", based on extensive interviews with its leaders as well as those who are actually waging that war — and finds the leaders wanting. |
| Trump, Mary L. | The Reckoning | 4.5 | 3/28/2022 | Mary L. Trump provides her professional perspective on how to heal from our multiple national traumas. |
| Unger, Craig | House of Trump, House of Putin | 5.0 | 9/29/2021 | The most detailed and thorough of the chronicles of Trump's epochal entanglement with Putin's Riddlers. |
| Waldman, Michael | The Fight To Vote | 5.0 | 10/23/2016 | Michael Waldman heads the Brennan Center for Justice. Here he explains how our unjust election system came to be, and makes a plea for us to get out and vote to fix it. |
| Wilson, Rick | Everything Trump Touches Dies | 5.0 | 5/06/2019 | Drawing on his thirty-year experience as a Republican consultant, Rick Wilson tells us why he is a Never Trumper. |
| Wilson, Rick | Running Against the Devil | 5.0 | 2/16/2020 | Having concluded he'd rather have one of them in the White House than Trump, Rick Wilson undertakes the mission of helping the Democrats win the presidency in 2020.. |
| Wilson, Ward | Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons | 4.0 | 10/19/2014 | With a noble aim but with scholarship that falls short, Mr. Wilson presents a case for the abolition of nuclear weapons. |
| Winkler, Adam | Gun Fight | 5.0 | 9/25/2019 | Adam Winkler walks us through DC v. Heller and through the history of guns in America, showing us that gun rights and gun control have always coexisted. |
| Woodward, Bob | Fear | 4.5 | 10/19/2018 | By giving us glimpses of its day-to-day conversation, veteran journalist Woodward shows us how chaotic Trump's administration is. |
| Woodward, Bob | Rage | 5.0 | 12/11/2020 | Bob Woodward's second book on the Trump administration covers seven months of its final year — its pandemic year. |
| Zubrin, Robert | Merchants of Despair | 3.0 | 6/27/2012 | Here Zubrin, an intelligent man and a capable engineer, allows his distaste for government regulations to overwhelm his better judgment, as he joins the "climate-change-conspiracy crowd." |
| The books are rated from 0 to 5 in increments of 0.5. Colors represent the following quality ranges: | ||||
| 4.0 to 5.0 | Quality: | HIGH | (Color = Aqua) | Competent to exceptional; well worth the money |
| 2.0 to 3.5 | Quality: | FAIR | (Color = Lime) | Useful despite some flaws; may or may not be worth buying. |
| 0.5 to 1.5 | Quality: | POOR | (Color = Yellow) | Seriously flawed; read it if you wish, but don't buy it. |
| 0.0 to 0.0 | Quality: | YUCK | (Color = Fuchsia) | Avoid this book at all costs! |
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.