MixedThe Globe and Mail (CA)Exhaustively reported ... Original Sin does not offer a comprehensive assessment of how Mr. Biden’s governance decisions were affected or changed by his decline. The book also does not reflect on criticism of the U.S. media from both political camps for their handling of the issue—did reporters fail to dig deep enough into Mr. Biden’s decline or did they overplay it relative to Mr. Trump’s erratic behaviour? And while the authors touch on the history of presidential health and secrecy, they don’t delve much into this context ... The book’s structure is also loose. Some sections read as a marathon series of insider anecdotes, seemingly driven by a desire to include as much information as possible even after the authors have ably proven their thesis ... These writing choices are probably more by design than flaw, fitting with a current subgenre of Washington insider book, in which the objective is to reconstruct as many backroom scenes as possible and publish them quickly. Still, a reader not already invested in the subject matter may find it repetitive ... Either way, Original Sin both asks and answers troubling questions about health and the world‘s most powerful political office. And it creates a highly detailed historical record along the way.
Madeleine Albright
PositiveThe Globe and Mail\"Much of the book draws on Albright’s own experience ... Some of Fascism’s strongest sections are the ones drawn from Albright’s first-hand observations of the autocrats she dealt with while in office ... Where the book falters is in its lack of a substantial first-hand account of how and why democratic leaders failed to stop the current rise of authoritarianism. As one of the most powerful members of the west’s ruling class during the decade after the Cold War, Albright is in a prime position to recount the behind-the-scenes decision-making that led to the failures of democracy she describes ... Still, Fascism stands out for both Albright’s close vantage point to many of the leaders she describes and for its deft structure, which rests on highly readable sketches of a dozen despots, interspersed with analysis on the common traits that signal the rise of fascism.\
