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US Politics

Democracy in Chains: The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America by Nancy MacLean

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December 2017, no. 397
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 ...

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Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s decline: From Obama to Trump and beyond by Gideon Rachman

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December 2017, no. 397
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 ...

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Audacity by Jonathan Chait & We Are The Change We Seek edited by E.J. Dionne Jr and Joy-Ann Reid

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June-July 2017, no. 392
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 ...

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Insane Clown President by Matt Taibbi & How The Hell Did This Happen? by by P.J. O’Rourke

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May 2017, no. 391
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.

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The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston

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October 2016, no. 385
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 ...

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Dark Money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right by Jane Mayer

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October 2016, no. 385
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 ...

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Letter from America

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September 2016, no. 384

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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Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War by James Curran

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August 2015, no. 373
Billy Griffiths reviews 'Unholy Fury' by James Curran

‘I have never met an Aussie I didn’t like.’ The half-compliment was the best President Richard Nixon could muster during a restrained exchange with Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in the Oval Office in July 1973. After the turbulent build-up to this meeting, rivetingly conveyed in James Curran’s history Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War, one almost e ...

The Stranger: Barack Obama in the White House by Varun Ghosh

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May 2015, no. 371
Varun Ghosh reviews 'The Stranger' by Chuck Todd

It is sometimes easy to forget that Barack Obama ascended from the Illinois state senate to the presidency of the United States in just over four years. It was a steep rise – exhilarating and unprecedented. Since assuming office in January 2009, the road has been rockier, and it is Obama’s seven years in office that form the subject of Chuck Todd’s The Stra ...

The Global Republic: America's Inadvertent Rise to World Power by Frank Ninkovich

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May 2015, no. 371
Glyn Davis reviews 'The Global Republic' by Frank Ninkovich

‘There’s a greater problem here. This is a president who won’t proudly proclaim American exceptionalism, maybe the first president ever who truly doesn’t believe in that … Look at his foreign policy. Doesn’t believe [in] America as a force for good, it doesn’t seem. Seems like instead, he believes in multilateralism as a goal, not a tactic. He allows f ...

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