A well-informed accounting of the nation under siege.
Another look at the chaos of the Trump administration and its disastrous handling of the pandemic.
Washington Post health policy reporter Abutaleb and the Post’s economics editor Paletta interviewed more than 180 people, including government officials, health experts, and advisers; reviewed text messages and internal documents; and read thousands of pages of emails to offer a thoroughly damning picture of America’s response to the pandemic. Their portrayal of a dysfunctional White House is likely to come as no surprise to readers who have followed mainstream news: “Much has been written about Trump’s temperament, paranoia, nonexistent attention span, disaffection, susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and disregard for facts,” the authors write. “It was all true.” He fostered a “strident, combative atmosphere,” pitting aides against one another “like roosters at a cockfight, gladiator matches for his amusement,” and he became incensed when anyone garnered more press attention than he did. Focused on reelection, he saw the virus as an annoying distraction and an increasing case count as a personal affront. He was abetted by staff who shared his disparagement of scientific and medical advice, feared for their jobs, or were “fluent in the kind of sycophancy Trump required”—or all of the above. From the first, the response was fraught with hostility, tension, and the turmoil that occurs when no one is in charge: not Health and Human Services director Alex Azar, an arrogant micromanager; not CDC director Robert Redfield, too unassertive to take on the president; not physicians Deborah Birx or Anthony Fauci, who incited such hatred that they were inundated with death threats. “The whole pandemic response,” the authors reveal, “was managed through power, intimidation, and bullying,” and “deep polarization” in government led to “even deeper political divisions across the country.” The authors intend their report as a warning for the future: “A dearth of public health and biodefense expertise in the government, especially in the White House,” invites peril.
A well-informed accounting of the nation under siege.Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-306605-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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.
