MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewAre these enablers true believers or just cynical opportunists? Do they believe the lies they tell and the conspiracies they invent or are they simply greedy for wealth and power? The answers she reaches are frankly equivocal, which in our era of dueling absolutes is commendable if sometimes a little frustrating ... less substantial, a magazine essay expanded into a book that is part rumination, part memoir ... A recurring problem in this book is that most of the clercs refuse to talk to Applebaum, leaving her dependent on the public record and the wisdom of mutual acquaintances. But she makes the best of what she’s got. She is most sure-footed when appraising intellectuals who have lived in, and escaped, the Soviet orbit ... apparently was supposed to have finished with a hopeful appraisal of her children’s generation, but that finale was interrupted by the coronavirus, and it leaves her — like the rest of us — at a loss.
Barry Friedman
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review...looks beyond the lethal use of force at the many other ways the Fourth Amendment protection against 'unreasonable searches and seizures' has been ignored or stretched in the name of public safety ... Friedman’s case — illuminated with stories of hapless civilians encountering excesses of force or surveillance — is not that police should be denied the best tools, but that there should be clear rules ... Friedman, who is a constitutional lawyer, puts much of the blame on courts for failing to demand that police show probable cause and obtain warrants, and more generally for letting police invade our privacy in new ways without a prerequisite of open, democratic debate. But the ultimate culprit is us.
Richard Kluger
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review...vivid storytelling built on exacting research, a knack for animating the context and an exquisite sense of balance that honors this country’s essential press freedom without romanticizing its champions ... Whether Zenger was moved by profit, idealism or something else is unknown, as is almost everything else about the man. Kluger resorts to a lot of 'was probably' and 'we can only imagine' and 'might well have' to sketch a speculative portrait ... What ensues is a gripping courtroom confrontation that Kluger reconstructs mainly from the detailed notes of the defense lawyers, there being no official transcript.
