About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Walter Russell Mead
Rave The New York Times Book Review Mead sets the record straight by presenting a long and nuanced alternative history of U.S.-Israel relations ... less a history of U.S.-Israel policy than a sweeping and masterfully told history of U.S. foreign policy in general, as seen through the lens of the U.S.-Israel relationship ... Given the book’s hefty size, it’s only fair to ask whether these asides feel extraneous. Few do. Mead is so fluent on such a broad range of topics — from history to religion to policy to politics — that I learned something new from each of his detours. And he’s such a good craftsman — the prose is among the best I’ve encountered in 25 years of reviewing foreign-policy books — that when he does occasionally stray beyond the strictly necessary, it’s hard to object. Does the book really need an account of President Benjamin Harrison’s struggles to quit smoking? Probably not. But reason not the need; the inclusion of such colorful details only makes the book more vivid and enriching ... Despite all the information that The Arc of a Covenant packs in, moreover, it never loses sight of a key argument, which is an extended attack on the \'rancid urban legend\' known as the Israel Lobby theory ... Despite its polemical power, Mead manages to keep the book’s tone high-minded and generous; when discussing his, or Israel’s, adversaries, he always strives to give everyone the benefit of the doubt ... Well, almost always. No book is perfect, and The Arc of a Covenant is no exception. For some reason, Mead’s generosity of spirit fails him when he gets to the Obama administration, which he scornfully describes as naïve and inept — criticisms he largely spares both George W. Bush and (most mysteriously) Donald Trump, despite both presidents’ equal or greater failures. Another quibble: The book would benefit from clearer sourcing, especially when making controversial claims ... Finally, at the book’s end I found myself wishing, if not for policy recommendations, then at least for predictions about where Mead thinks the U.S.-Israel relationship is headed. He’s so good at laying out the real but often-overlooked forces that shape this alliance, while puncturing the mythological ones, that I’d love to get his take on its future prospects — especially at this moment, when global politics and U.S. foreign policy are being scrambled in so many baffling ways ... But I suppose that will have to wait for Mead’s next book. The good news is that, judging from the quality of this one, it’s bound to be brilliant too.
Spencer Ackerman
Mixed The New York Times Book Review ... forg[es] a new, bright-orange link in a causal chain that connects 9/11 to today ... Ackerman’s arguments on all these points are compelling, even if his focus is sometimes too selective; in describing the rise of white nationalism, for example, he virtually ignores the more obvious and fundamental economic and social explanations for this trend — like the 2007-8 financial crisis and the election of the country’s first Black president. While his sense of causation may be off, however, his long, grim chronology serves as an important reminder of just how many terrible mistakes the United States has made in the War on Terror ... At a moment when anti-Trump Republicans are being praised by the mainstream media, it’s also useful to be reminded of the ways the last generation of Republican leaders set the precedents that Trump would exploit so wantonly ... That said, Reign of Terror is not well served by its chronological structure, which is long, dense and packed with extraneous detail...There’s so much extra story crammed into this story that the familiar parts sometimes overshadow the fresher ones ... Sticking almost entirely to narrative also means that Reign of Terror fails to address some crucial analytical points. Most important, it lacks a discussion of how the United States should have responded to Al Qaeda, the attacks of 9/11 and the threat of violent extremism. Moreover, while Ackerman occasionally hints at what he wants to happen now he gives readers no sense of how to get there, or how the United States could better protect itself from the dangers that do exist ... This failure to engage with hard policy questions points to another problem with the book: Ackerman seems to have little interest in persuasion. His tone throughout is snarky and scornful; he depicts most of the players in his drama as gutless, scheming or simply stupid ... Rage and derision are appropriate, or at least understandable, responses to Trump and his depredations. I’m not sure moderate Democrats or the mainstream media deserve the same treatment. While the tenor of the book may satisfy readers who already feel exactly the same way as Ackerman, it’s likely to alienate those who don’t ... All the contempt only distracts attention from the book’s many important points. And it turns “Reign of Terror” into a left-wing instantiation of both the meanness and the polarization that characterized the Trump era, rather than the refutation of that era that a less vituperative account might have offered. In the end, the book doesn’t just fail to provide a clear sense of how the War on Terror should have been run, or of how the Biden administration can finally conclude it — answers that, as the current carnage in Afghanistan shows, are more necessary than ever. The book also offers no way out of the vicious, self-perpetuating domestic conflict that our foreign wars helped ignite — a conflict that writing like this may only perpetuate.
Nicole Perlroth
Rave The New York Times Book Review In This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends Nicole Perlroth provides another explanation for the ever-expanding cyberassaults on the United States ... This is no bloodless, just-the-facts chronicle. Written in the hot, propulsive prose of a spy thriller, Perlroth’s book sets out from the start to scare us out of our complacency — and (on my part, at least) it succeeds. As a narrator, Perlroth comes at the reader hard, like an angry Cassandra who has spent the last seven years of her life (which is both the length of her career at The Times and more or less the time she spent working on the book) unmasking the signs of our impending doom — only to be ignored again and again ... This is all compelling stuff, and Perlroth makes a strong, data-driven case for action ... The book’s relative lack of access to policymakers and -making also proves an obstacle at the book’s end, where Perlroth offers a few short pages on how to deal with the very scary problems she’s highlighted in the preceding 400 pages. Many of her suggestions are sensible, but also feel like long shots ... Still, Perlroth has done a valuable service in highlighting the need for big changes in how America approaches its cybersecurity ...