MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewWhile the work is extraordinarily timely and undeniably important, Daley’s argument is perhaps a bit too zealous. No doubt this sinister practice has effectively destroyed congressional cooperation, but one has to wonder, especially this election year, whether America’s partisan divide really is simply the result of nefarious mapmaking. The rise of an angry, inchoate political force — one that has not only bucked party orthodoxy but maintained widespread grass-roots support — would seem to lend credence to the idea that progress on big-ticket issues relating to the environment and economy is not stalled just because of this miserable redistricting process, but indeed because of a growing and seemingly unbridgeable gulf between the haves and have-nots, urbanites and ruralists, insiders and outsiders.
