PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Miller’s account of this revolution is fascinating and granular, told through his encounters with protesters of all stripes ... His writing about the war is equally nuanced ... Miller certainly has a journalist’s eye for telling details and ear for poignant or revealing comments. He avoids caricature without getting bogged down by caveats. He is not pretending to be a historian or an analyst, but is instead taking the reader on a journey through the tumult of recent years.
Michael V Hayden
MixedThe Washington PostThis is indeed alarmist—but Hayden’s indictment of Trump’s campaign and presidency, and the wider forces he channels and embodies, does not quite live up to this apocalyptic billing. The book covers a lot of familiar territory and does not add much to our understanding of the populist and partisan turn in American and Western politics. However, it is striking that this jeremiad comes from a longtime insider, a Republican stalwart of past administrations and a fierce critic of the Barack Obama presidency. The more important, absorbing and disturbing aspect of Hayden’s book is the analysis from his professional perspective of what Trump and Trumpism mean for the intelligence community. It is sober, nuanced and, quite frankly, scary as hell. Hayden clearly feels an emotional commitment to his former colleagues in the intelligence community. At times this pushes him into hyperbole ... his attempt to compare the spy’s calling to that of other \'truth tellers—scholars, journalists, scientists, to name a few\'—misses an obvious point about the essence of truth-telling. Spooks funnel their truths to their own cadre while engaging in duplicity and misdirection with most everyone else ... The book is strong on portraying tensions between the Trump administration and the intelligence community, beginning with the presidential transition when, as Hayden writes, the Trump team entered the White House with \'the air of a hostile corporate takeover.\'
