PositivePIttsburgh Post-GazetteAckerman provides an in-depth examination of the national security policy of the United States in the 20 years since 9/11 ... Unapologetically partisan and polemical, Reign of Terror is Ackerman’s take-no-prisoners attack on policies of the \'Security State\' ... Ackerman provides detailed documentation of his claim that the legacy of the War on Terror isn’t limited to disastrous foreign military deployments.
Louis Menand
RavePittsburgh Post-GazetteSweeping and searching, immensely informative, insightful, lucid and engaging, Menand’s magnum opus bolsters his reputation as a leading public intellectual in the United States. The author illuminates exchanges between Americans, Western Europeans and anti-colonialists in the Caribbean, Africa, India and Asia ... Menand is extraordinarily adept at analyzing abstract concepts for readers ... He knows how to be judgmental as well as judicious.
Robert Draper
RavePittsburgh Post GazetteIn To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq, Robert Draper, a writer-at-large for the New York Times draws on a mountain of government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with hundreds of key players to provide an authoritative account of one of the most catastrophic decisions in recent American history.
George Friedman
PanPIttsburgh Post-GazetteThe Storm Before the Calm...is a provocative attempt to connect past, present, and future, that, in my judgment, shines a spotlight on the flaws of futurology. Mr. Friedman’s examination of American history, the foundation of his theory, is a mix of conventional wisdom and vague, simplistic and dubious claims ... The underlying assumption of The Storm Before the Calm—that the onset and outcome of cycles are inevitable because the \'deep structure\' and its development \'control actors and events\'—should also be met with skepticism ... And Mr. Friedman’s book is awash in faux precision ... Kinda’ makes my head spin.
John Clubbe
PanPittsburgh Post-GazetteIn advancing his thesis, Mr. Clubbe faces daunting challenges ... Mr. Clubbe, alas, does not overcome these challenges. He does not define the key concepts in his book—revolution, freedom, liberty, equality—or elaborate on Beethoven’s understanding of them ... Beethoven: The Relentless Revolutionary depends too much on speculation ... It seems to me, however, that although, like many of his contemporaries, Beethoven drew on turn-of-the-century humanitarian and progressive ideals and current events, his political philosophy, such as it was, remained sufficiently vague as to be attributable as well (as he once did) to Jesus and Socrates.
Andrew G McCabe
PositivePittsburgh Post-Gazette\"The Threat is filled with examples, some familiar, some new, of Mr. Trump’s breaches of propriety and historical norms, lies, mean-spirited behavior and, most important, his interference with investigations, indictments and prosecutions by the Justice Department and Special Counsel Robert Mueller ... Some readers, no doubt, will dismiss The Threat as an exercise in score settling ... That said, The Threat should be judged by the credibility (and, where possible, corroboration) of the analysis ... And Mr. McCabe provides evidence to support his assertion that the president is \'actively pushing\' an agenda that encourages his supporters to identify themselves as \'the real Americans,\' stigmatize others and seek to lock them up, and accept as \'facts\' only information that is presented by their media outlets ... Mr. McCabe \'would love to imagine a future in which we have righted the ship.\' But other than endorsing traditional values — obedience to the Constitution, fairness, compassion, individual and institutional integrity, accountability, public service and diversity — he comes up empty.\
Richard Gergel
PositivePittsburgh Post-Gazette\"Judge Gergel provides a heart-wrenching account of racial injustice in the South in the middle of the 20th century ... Judge Gergel probably exaggerates the impact of the blinding of Isaac Woodard on Mr. Truman’s commitment to racial justice. Nonetheless, he is surely right that Mr. Truman exhibited considerable political courage in creating the first presidential commission on civil rights...\
Jill Abramson
PositivePittsburgh Post-Gazette\"... a richly detailed and compelling analysis of the current battle for attention, credibility, and authority ... The broad contours of Ms. Abramson’s analysis of the news business will be familiar to most of her readers. Merchants of Truth, alas, is also repetitious, and awash in gossipy details about drinking, drugs and misogyny. That said, the book is a tour de force of investigative journalism. Jill Abramson knows her subject — and many of her subjects.\
Deborah Blum
PositiveThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette\"... a splendid account of Dr. Wiley’s crusade for consumer safety and the forces arrayed against him. Intended as an antidote for our nation’s current \'regulatory memory failure,\' her book is a powerful and persuasive reminder that caveat emptor affords precious little protection to purchasers of manufactured products.\
Jill Lepore
RavePittsburgh Post-Gazette\"... a piquant, provocative and dazzling history of America. Like Thomas Paine, she writes with fury, flash, and flourish ... As she generalizes, Ms. Lepore sometimes gets ahead of her skis ... Far more often, however, Ms. Lepore’s analysis, which is grounded in dissatisfaction with liberalism as well as conservatism, is compelling ... Most compelling is Ms. Lepore’s documentation of conflicts over truth throughout U.S. history.\
Dawn Raffel
MixedSan Francisco Chronicle\"Raffel nails down some important facts ... The Strange Case of Dr. Couney is awash in digressions; conversations with surviving patients who had more questions than answers; narratives shaped by retelling and memory; and speculation.\
Paul Collins
PositiveSan Francisco ChronicleWell-researched and beautifully written, his book is filled with Dickensian characters ... Collins knows how to build suspense. He ends many chapters with a cliffhanger ... Blood & Ivy qualifies as a guilty pleasure for summer readers.
E. J. Dionne Jr.
RaveThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette...a sweeping, sophisticated and shrewd analysis of the radicalization of the Republican Party from the defeat of Goldwater to the rise of the Tea Party and the bizarre twists and turns of the GOP’s presidential contest in the fall of 2015.
