It was an act of transcendent masochism, but we should be grateful he did it because What Were We Thinking looks past the obvious and perverse — that is, past Trump himself — to the troublesome questions raised by the elevation of a soulless carnival barker to the nation’s highest office ... crisp, engaging and very smart. Lozada can be lacerating ... Beyond the snark, though, there is a simple, piercing clarity to many of Lozada’s observations ... More often, though, Lozada finds subtleties in areas we’ve assumed clear-cut ... Carlos Lozada is a book critic, not a policy wonk. He doesn’t propose specific solutions to our current state of disgrace, but he does offer a vision of American stability being eviscerated by the public’s need to be entertained.
... an immensely valuable book ... Lozada acknowledges that he can’t cover the entire Trump-era oeuvre, but in his selections his judgment is good and his survey illuminating. He is a thoughtful, clever and engaging tour guide. He argues persuasively that the most valuable recent books on American public life move beyond outrage to probe the reasons Trump was elected and the reasons his supporters have stuck by him ... Lozada offers a brilliant, wrenching analysis of immigration ... Lozada’s treatment of identity and gender politics is especially valuable.
... an elegant yet lacerating volume, A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era ... Lozada is capable of waspishness himself. By design, this is a brief survey; his need to use just a few lines to sink any given book comes to seem unavoidable, even perhaps unfair ... On the other hand, it’s gratifying when Lozada ensnares and punctures a writer with whom one does not see eye to eye ... In a low period for American democracy, Lozada aims high ... In doing so, he rightly considers a host of books which are very much not Chaos Chronicles – which, on the face of it, are not actually about Trump at all. Such works are examined in chapters on books about Trump voters in the heartlands; on the resistance; on immigration; on conservative thought; on the nature of truth itself ... If we cannot tear our gaze away, Lozada shows us how best to look.
An intellectual history devoted to a dimwit who once struggled to read aloud an extract from the American constitution ... A chronicle of a so-called era that has lasted less than four noisy, nerve-racking years and with luck is about to end? A book that solemnly analyses 150 often trashy books about someone who is not known to have read a single book and hired stooges to write the 20 self-puffing volumes published in his name? Yes, Carlos Lozada’s survey of what he archly calls 'Trump Studies' is all of those paradoxical things and it is an utter marvel: sober though frequently very funny, fairer minded than the subject deserves, in the end profoundly troubling even as it looks ahead to America’s recovery from the Trump malaise ... Lozada, a book reviewer for the Washington Post, approaches his binge-reading chore as an exercise in cultural criticism ... Should The Trump Show be renewed next season or do we need to 'fundamentally change the script'? What we need to fundamentally change, as Lozada demonstrates, is the way we think.
Carlos Lozada’s What Were We Thinking aspires to be an omnibus volume, a mosaic composed of the best (and worst) of the myriad books about Trump’s presidency—an 'intellectual history' (to use Lozada’s subtitle) of the last four years. What Were We Thinking is, instead, not much more than the sum of its many quotations. A mirror image of the vast majority of the 150 books under review, it is a muddled work that aspires to reckon with this strange, bewildering period but is instead swallowed up and contorted by it. What Were We Thinking is most useful as an indication of just how thoroughly our lives have been overwhelmed by the Trump presidency—and how far we still have to go to make sense of the very recent past.
This reviewer is grateful to Lozada for doing the thoughtful reading and digesting of this large, constantly growing body of literature and offering such cogent analyses of this canon. If you haven’t read these 150 books, What Were We Thinking will give you a fascinating overview and analysis of the books that explain where we are now, how we got here, and where we might be headed.
That Lozada is an immigrant adds an extra dimension to his critique of these Trump-era works ... Fans of Lozada’s critiques in the Post can look forward to a longform version of his cogent, thoughtful, and comfortably familiar tone, as though he is exploring his thoughts on these books over a leisurely lunch with friends. He doesn’t give a pass to lazy, self-indulgent writing or poorly supported arguments from either side of the partisan divide. Authors need to bring their A-game for their efforts to get Lozada’s approving nod.
[An] incisive survey of the 150 nonfiction books he’s read 'on the Trump era' ... Readers will appreciate this useful guide to a bookshelf that grows more crowded by the minute.
A literary survey of the wreckage that is the Trump administration ... A nimble overview of the library of Trumpiana, which is likely to grow no matter what the outcome of the 2020 election.
