About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Richard Slotkin
Mixed The New York Times Book Review It is clear that in recent years competing mythologies have played out in rhetoric, activism and visions of government. But it’s less clear that these mythologies have the kind of explanatory force Slotkin hangs on them ... For Slotkin, the insurrection only reinforces the need for a new national mythology. But two powerful myths built on racial equality have already failed.
Jonathan Martin
Rave Washington Post The book spans two years, from the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States through the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency...Bouncing between rapidly radicalizing Republicans and business-as-usual Democrats, it tells a story of an unprecedented attack on democracy and a system distinctly unsuited to respond...The overriding message — that democracy is in as much danger today as it was when rioters smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol — comes through with startling clarity...This Will Not Pass charts the path of two parties and two presidencies at a moment when the democratic system in the United States was becoming increasingly fragile — when, in fact, Trump and his allies in the Republican Party were increasingly committed to dismantling it...Martin and Burns divide that story into three parts: the pre-election period starting in March 2020, when Biden emerged as the Democratic nominee and the coronavirus pandemic upended the presidential race; the long election period, stretching from early November to the Jan. 6 insurrection; and the first year of Biden’s presidency, when the Democrats were challenged to put the country back together and the Republicans were challenged to do anything — anything at all — about the act of terror that marked the end of Trump’s presidency.
E J Dionne
Positive The New York Times Book Review As part of this endeavor, [Dionee Jr.] has often chided the right for its mounting extremism, but he never wrote it off. Which is why Dionne’s latest book should send our alarm bells shrieking. Though written in the same patient, even soothing, voice as his earlier works, the narrowed scope of Code Red shows how much his view of politics has changed. The right barely factors into this new bridge-building project. Conservatives are, for all intents and purposes, a lost cause ... while his past calls for political unity seem to have failed, there’s reason to hope this one might succeed ... This is an exquisitely timed book, coming just at the moment of the Democrats’ quadrennial splintering ... yet, it’s not at all clear moderates and progressives need to be reconciled ... a worthwhile exploration of the shared goals (and shared enemies) that unite moderates and progressives. But more than that, it is a sharp reminder that the common ground on which Dionne built his career has been badly eroded, with little prospect that it will soon be restored.
Kathleen Belew
Rave The New York Times Book Review Kathleen Belew’s gripping study of white power ... is a breathtaking argument, one that treats foreign policy as the impetus for a movement that most people view through the lens of domestic racism ... It’s a stunning indictment of official culpability, and Belew constructs her case with forensic care. In doing so, she shows that, while racism is ever with us, policy choices ranging from local police strategies to the furthest reaches of foreign policy create the space for white power to flourish.