Thank you Bloomsbury Continuum for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. No review was required as a condition for receiving the advance reading copy and no review was promised.
Mr. Book just finished The Forever War, by Nick Bryant.
This is a book about how the flaws in America’s political system, as well as our political polarization, are nothing new, but in fact has been a common theme throughout American history. The theme of the book can be summed up in a single sentence from the author: “In the telling of the American story, acts like Kennedy’s assassination have been treated as abnormalities, a tendency that obscures the reality that they are more reflective of normalcy.”
As Bryant successfully shows, our political system didn’t just become diseased overnight or even gradually. It was that way from the very beginning.
The chapter on the Kennedy assassination, and that surrounding time period served as a very good start to the book. The author explained the truth about how we weren’t just one happy peaceful nation back then before the assassination changed everything. It didn’t change everything. It was just another datapoint on the kind of country this has been.
The discussions on both the election of 2000 and January 6 were among the strengths of the book. I especially liked that author made a connection between the Brooks Brothers Riot and the riot of January 6. And one thing that I love about history books is the little tidbits that can always be found within, such as Scalia’s real opinion of Bush v. Gore that he gave privately.
The chapter on gun violence could have been the best one in the book. Bryant combines both historical material as well as more recent events and data to make his points.
Bryant is a British born author who works for the BBC. When he points out that the rest of the world does not consider the concept of American exceptionalism to be a compliment, he has the experience and expertise to know what he is talking about. That discussion is one of the many strong parts of the book.
Bryant does a very good job showing how America’s true history has been whitewashed for the masses. That’s why I was a little disappointed in him when he repeated the myth that Nixon didn’t put up a fight in 1960 and conceded defeat in the interests of the nation. As anyone who has studied Nixon knows, having the presidency stolen from him while he sat back and accepted it is too much out of character for him. And, as the historical record, as documented by the newspapers of the day, show, the Nixon campaign was contesting numerous states and putting up a lot of court battles before finally giving up.
I had previously given Bryant’s book When America Stopped Being Great an A. So I had big expectations coming into this one. This one exceeded my expectations and earned itself an A+, which also means it instantly gets inducted into my Hall of Fame. And maybe I will eventually reread the other one to see if that can earn a promotion.
Goodreads, NetGalley and Amazon require grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A+ equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at this blog, NetGalley and Goodreads. It will also be posted at Amazon, as soon as the book is released to the public on June 4.
