It succeeds because it exists in two parts. The first 185 pages are an easily digested, idyllic Bernie Sanders history ... The second half of Our Revolution is an updated version of Sanders’ famous 2010 eight-and-a-half-hour filibuster speech. These core ideas made up Sanders’ platform during his nomination bid, and many of them made it into the Democratic platform that Hillary Clinton later ran on against Donald Trump. Sanders’ voice is very present throughout Our Revolution, and that affords the book a sort of feel-good quality as well. If you’ve forgotten how it felt when Bernie Sanders spoke and you wondered 'Could we really have such a nice world?' as your heart fluttered, this book will take you back there—and rev you up for the journey ahead.
Unfortunately, it reads like a book that was written in weeks. The first half of Our Revolution begins promisingly enough, with the fascinating story of Sanders’s political life ... But the account of his presidential campaign is slapdash and poorly organized, and it carries none of the drama that his followers felt so passionately ... By the time the first half of the book draws to a close, all but the most avid Sanders fans will surely consider skimming ... Thankfully, the second half of the book, in which Sanders outlines policy prescriptions, is exactly what Democrats need to read right now ... Sanders is the only high-profile Democrat with a clear vision for what must be done, and that’s what makes Our Revolution so important.
...deadpan, wistful and wonkish ... Reading it as a reporter who covered Sanders closely, I felt like a sitcom character who gets beaned on the head and hallucinates an angel — or a talking dog, or a 75-year-old senator from Vermont — spinning lessons about what really matters in life ... Anyone picking up Our Revolution to learn what the Sanders campaign was like will get some impassive memories and not much else ... the rest of Our Revolution [is] an extended information dump that supplements Sanders’s old stump speech with a tree-slaughtering army of charts. Any reader who was not already a fan of Scandinavian welfare systems will become one.
...given what's just occurred the book is inevitably, satisfyingly prescient ... Sanders' book shows a path-one that moves briskly to the left-for connecting with the white working class. But there's little discussion of how reach the elderly and black voters who weren't enthusiastic about his primary campaign ... Our Revolution focuses on offering a liberal alternative to both Clinton's policies and her approach to politics. Sanders rarely mentions Trump, except to point out his 'bigotry and racism.' Now the landscape looks very different.
Our Revolution contains more biographical material than Sanders ever gave up on the stump ... The second part of the book provides a useful platform for anyone seeking public office, and its thoroughgoing review of economics, health care, trade policy, climate change, criminal justice, immigration, corporate media, and social welfare will likely provide any reader with greater depth in at least one area. In my case, it was higher education ... There is one serious omission in this book. The second part of Our Revolution contains no section on foreign policy. And in this it is consistent with the campaign.
