A compelling and sensible overview of America’s emerging democratic crisis.
A veteran columnist assesses the state of American democracy in this debut collection.
Donald Trump’s “words, deeds and basic instincts,” this book asserts, “are fundamentally at odds with America’s long-held essential ideals.” And while “American democracy withstood the Trump presidency,” which served as the nation’s titular “stress test,” the United States is not out of the woods given his sustained popularity on the right and the rise of sycophants who follow in his political footsteps. An attorney, Cooper is also an active columnist whose writings have appeared in more than 100 publications. This volume, a compilation of select columns from 2019 through “the first few months of 2022,” argues that Trump represents a dangerous trend in American politics that disregards the rule of law and fundamental constitutional principles; “openly and unapologetically” challenges the outcomes of fair and free elections; and has “descended into a whirlpool of lies, false narratives and abhorrent stupidities.” And while adamant that Trump represents “the foremost threat to American democracy,” the author does not absolve Democratic politicians for actively participating in the “bipartisan race to the bottom.” Most notably, in addition to joining the toxic cacophony of hyperbolic voices that has become a staple in American rhetoric, the Democrats displayed a preoccupation and “overreaction” in their pursuit of Trump’s first impeachment that lowered the standards of the process in a way that jeopardized its legitimacy. Covering topics that span criminal justice reform to the Jan. 6 insurrection, Cooper’s columns, which are organized thematically and accompanied by short, introductory essays, are well balanced and soundly argued as individual pieces. Stuffed together in a book, the columns make for a sometimes disjointed read. Given the nature of newspaper columns, the volume also lacks references and a bibliography. Some readers may also be skeptical of the work’s idealized version of American democratic history, backed by an ample use of inspirational quotes from Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and other luminaries. Nevertheless, the book’s reasoned tone and bipartisan critiques are a welcome perspective in an increasingly polarized and heated political landscape.
A compelling and sensible overview of America’s emerging democratic crisis.Pub Date: July 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-913606-68-8
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Eyewear Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
