The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler

A witty, fast paced roller-coaster ride through 1980s New York.

New York in the 1970s was a city in debt and seemingly terminal decline. Its manufacturing base had been eviscerated. Poverty was endemic and crime at an all time high. New York needed money. Then came the 1980s, and Reaganomics and deregulation. Boom! The town was back in business. It pivoted from old school industry to computerised finance. Digitising stocks and money put them on steroids. People became extremely wealthy.

Gods of New York covers four years at the end of the 80s: 1986-1989. Mayor Ed Koch sought and won an historic third term. But there was much strife afflicting the city - racially motivated violence, the AIDS crisis, high level corruption, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and the mentally unwell living on the streets. For every societal ill there was a charismatic if controversial advocate. The list of such characters is mesmerising: Black activist Reverend Al Sharpton, AIDS crisis agitator Larry Kramer, film maker Spike Lee, disease specialist Anthony Fauci and crime fighting lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to name a few. There are also plenty of less famous characters, such as Joyce Brown, a homeless woman turned celebrity. The city had tried to have her institutionalised, but she fought through the courts to be allowed to return to the street.

Hovering above the city is Donald Trump, a glittering success and a figure of undisputed economic prowess. Throughout the late 80s Trump would back himself into a corner by over investing in the Atlantic City casino scene, just at a time when punters had no money and were pulling in their spending. And yet the banks continued to lend him staggering amounts of money. His debts became so eye-watering that the banks essentially couldn’t let him fail.

Author and journalist Jonathan Mahler does a brilliant job of building a compelling narrative around the events, scandals and crimes of the day. (A lot of time is devoted to harrowing crime cases.) He has a witty style and clever turn of phrase, able to distill the cultural and economic movements of the time into pithy one liners. The picture that emerges of New York is of a place that is terribly fractured and extreme. A city of dreadful poverty, entrenched racism, drug addiction, homelessness and mental illness. Why, one wonders, so many problems in a city that is an economic engine room of the world economy? The book doesn’t end on a cheery note, with Jonathan Mahler asserting that these divisions, between rich and poor, black and white, have only become more entrenched.  

An entertaining and insightful portrait of a complex city. New York may be cruel and unforgiving, but it produces extraordinary people and cultural movements. 

The Gods of New York, by Jonathan Mahler. Published by Hutchinson Heinemann. $36.99

NOV25

The Forever War: America's Unending War With Itself, by Nick Bryant

Nick Bryant explains how America has always been a deeply divided country, and has little prospect of changing. 

​British journalist Nick Bryant has long had a love affair with the United States, a fascination that began when he was a teenager. He first visited the country in the late 1980s, armed with a student visa. He would later spend years living in New York covering the Trump presidency. Over his many decades as a journalist he has not only lived in the US, but studied its history. The Forever War mixes the personal experience of the outsider with impressive historical research. He argues that America’s current toxic political divide - a cold civil war threatening to turn hot - has strong historical antecedents. Moreover, America, Bryant argues, has never reconciled itself to its racist, fractured past. The culture war over critical race theory, he argues, is excessive. The reality is the country was built on a racist scaffolding. From enslavement, to Jim Crow, and in our own day, voter suppression. 

The picture Nick Bryant paints of America, past and present, is a carnival of violence and mayhem. Political assasinations, lynchings, mass shootings, children murdered at school, children unwitting killers themselves, handling guns they shouldn’t, in any rational world, have access to. And yet gun laws are deeply entrenched, in part due to a selective reading of the constitution.

We often think of America as a premier global democracy, but this is a myth. In an exhaustive dissection of the electoral system, we are exposed to a deeply flawed democracy that aims more to stop people voting than encourage it. The vagaries of the electoral college system means American democracy is unrepresentative. This is a country where everything is politicised, especially cultural issues. The courts - even the supreme court - which should be impartial, are openly politicised as well.  

There is not much cheery news in The Forever War. Nick Bryant, a one time fan, describes leaving his New York apartment and travelling to JFK airport, but not looking back nostalgically to the Manhatten skyline, which he once thought was studded with diamonds. As the title suggests, America’s war with itself will continue on, its many historical issues unresolved. If violence does break out, Bryant suggests it won’t be a full blown civil war, but more like violent spot fires. The one half of liberal voters who believe in the evidence based law will keep the country from going off the rails. 

A sobering portrait of the real America so often obscured by its glossy, rich, wonderland-like side.

The Forever War: America's Unending War With Itself, by Nick Bryant. Published by Viking. $36.99

JUN24

Oath and Honor, by Liz Cheney

The decline and fall of the Republican Party, as told by one of its own

I thought I was over reading books about Donald Trump, but apparently not. Liz Cheney's memoir of her time in Congress is a surprisingly good read, a gripping minute-by-minute account of how the Republic Party fell to Donald Trump. It's a story of Republican colleagues Cheney had thought were good and decent, hypocritically supporting a man they in private loathed. Not only that, when it became obvious Trump was dangerous and a threat to American democracy, Republicans continued to trumpet his lies. As Cheney makes clear, Trump didn't do it on his own, he had a legion of enablers in the Republican Party. They should have known better.

For those non-American readers who've always marveled at how forthright American patriotism is, Cheney also makes you understand why. She discusses the importance of the constitution and how America's freedoms were hard fought for. To be a patriot means putting democracy and the constitution above one's political party.

An excellent insider's account from someone who has rubbed shoulders with a lot of the main players in the Republican Party, providing a stunning amount of detail, but also some fascinating thumbnail portraits.

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, by Liz Cheney. Published by Headline. 

Trump's Australia: How Trumpism Changed Australia and the Shocking Consequences for Us of a Second Term, by Bruce Wolpe

 

An expert on American politics entertains the possibility of a second Trump term.

What would happen to Australia should Donald Trump win a second term as president of the United States? Such a situation seems an impossibility, yet the same was said for Trump’s 2016 election win. As author and political adviser Bruce Wolpe states, US politics is so volatile and divisive, anything is possible.

Trump’s Australia suggests a triumphant second Trump term could embolden extreme right-wing elements at home, but ultimately pulls back from this argument. Instead, Wolpe asserts that Australia's democratic institutions—such as mandatory voting, the independence of the Australian Electoral Commission—ensure our politics doesn't become polarised. A further bulwark against radicalism is the prominence of the national broadcaster, the ABC, ensuring a trusted outlet for quality news reporting.

For the most part, Trump’s Australia provides a recap of Trump's time in office and his attitude to policy areas such as China, North Korea, climate, health, race, free trade and abortion rights. It features extensive interviews with former government officials, insiders and experts, giving the text a breadth of interesting opinion. In essence, Wolpe (a former adviser to the Gillard government) contrasts US and Australian democracy, and finds our system to be much more resilient.

This book is a stark reminder of how catastrophic a second Trump term would be,  questioning how Australia would respond on a range of policy fronts. Politicians and engaged citizens should take note.

Trump's Australia: How Trumpism Changed Australia and the Shocking Consequences for Us of a Second Term, by Bruce Wolpe. Allen & Unwin. $34.99 Release date 20th June, 2023.

Review by Chris Saliba

This review first appeared at Books + Publishing

MAY23

It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism, by Bernie Sanders

An impassioned manifesto calling for fairness and equality for all.

Bernie Sanders has the distinction of being the longest serving independent senator in US congressional history. Being an independent politician clearly gives him the freedom to call it as he sees it. His grievances are fairly simple: American capitalism is off the charts, creating obscene inequalities in wealth. Large swathes of the country live in utter economic desperation – without healthcare and existing on starvation wages that have been stagnant for the last fifty years – while a miniscule section of the population have more money than they can ever hope to spend. By any standards, this is a societal bonfire awaiting a match.

It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism is more impassioned manifesto than economic critique. Readers worried about getting bogged down in statistics, data and national budgets, can relax. Sanders gives the meat and potatoes of vital issues confronting Americans. He tackles the inequities and inefficiencies of the healthcare system, the poorly performing education sector, the concentration of media ownership and the reasons why billionaires should not exist. Sanders examines the failures of the Democratic party, which has not done a good enough job of defending the rights of working class Americans. The Democrats have sided with the rich, rather than the poor. Furious working class Americans have deserted them in droves, and parked their votes with Republicans. Gross inequalities in wealth, according to Sanders, can go some way to explaining the success of the Republican Party, especially under Trump. Americans are fed up, but have nowhere to turn.

The answers to these problems are all simple: tax the mega rich and stop giving tax breaks to behemoth corporations. And fix up campaign donation laws so American democracy can no longer be bought and traded.

Should Australians read this book? If you want to see how bad things can get when wealth is concentrated and greed lauded. Reading this book will make you thankful for living in a country with free healthcare, compulsory voting, a well funded public broadcaster and fair elections, overseen by the independent Australian Electoral Commission.
​
It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism is a fiery, gutsy, passionate book that holds no punches. It's a reminder that the price of democracy, economic security and freedom is eternal vigilance.

It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism, by Bernie Sanders. Published by Allen Lane. $35

APRIL23

Confidence Man, by Maggie Haberman

Maggie Haberman's exhaustive biography of Donald Trump

It feels like we reached Trump saturation point many years ago. Who would want to read another book on the polarising president? Maggie Haberman is a journalist who has covered Trump for decades. Like Trump, she's a born and bred New Yorker. Unlike other memoirs and biographies that paint Trump as a cartoonish ogre, Haberman has drawn a nuanced, fully fleshed portrait. Confidence Man argues that if you want to understand the Trump of today, it's imperative to look at his past – his years as a 1980s property tycoon and his relationship with his father. We learn that Trump senior was controlling and brutal. As a property developer in a violent and corrupt 1980s New York, Trump was more bruiser than businessman, intimidating his way to success and using his father's money.

The second half of the book covers Trump's presidency, culminating in the January 6 insurrection. With superb research and detail, Haberman describes a slow motion train wreck. Trump's personality grew even more erratic and domineering with unchecked power. In the book's epilogue, Haberman neatly sums Trump up: “...a narcissistic drama-seeker who covered a fragile ego with a bullying impulse...”
A tour de force.  

Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, by Maggie Haberman. Published by HarperCollins. $34.99

FEB23

Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin

The classic text about racism in America

In 1959, journalist John Howard Griffin took the extraordinary step of changing his skin colour in order to pass as a Black man. Under the guidance of a dermatologist, Griffin took oral doses of a drug to darken his skin pigmentation, went under a tanning lamp and applied make-up. His first step to test if he passed among African-Americans was to go out in public and catch a bus. No one could tell he was actually white. African-Americans accepted him as one of their own. 

The reason for Griffin changing his skin colour was not to test the reactions of African-Americans, but of white people. Passing as a Black man he spent six weeks travelling the deep south, reporting for Sepia magazine (who also funded the experiment) and later turning the magazine articles he wrote into the book, Black Like Me.

We often think we understand what racism is, how it impacts people and why it's wrong. However, it's an entirely different thing to literally walk in the shoes of a coloured person. It opens up a whole world of subtle and not so subtle politics, soul destroying rules on behaviour and barely contained, seething rage. Early in the book, Griffin highlights a simple problem in the segregated south. If you're a coloured person out in public and you need to use the bathroom, that can be a major problem. You can be made to walk miles because there are no toilets available to you. Planning a trip can be fraught for this simple reason – there will be nowhere to go to the toilet. On one bus trip that Griffin describes, the driver refuses to stop the bus at a segregated restroom, meaning none of the coloured commuters could relieve themselves.

Another thing Griffin describes is the “hate stare”, being stared at by white people who utterly loathe the colour of your skin, and you because you inhabit it. Many a time Griffin would meet white people he thought were decent and civilised, but it didn't take long for the veneer to come off and racist attitudes to prevail. White people essentially think life as a person of colour is not so bad and can't see what all the fuss is about. They are blind to the structural disadvantage caused by white society. Black and white live side by side in America, yet there are major misunderstandings about each other's experience.

Griffin was shaken to the core by his experiences as a Black man. Shaken by his own latent racism that he didn't realise he harbored, and profoundly disturbed by the depth  of hatred in white America. He dreaded publishing his experiences for fear of the backlash. He and his family received death threats and moved to Mexico for a year. He later worked in the Civil Rights movement and many of his friends and associates were assassinated by white supremacists.

Black Like Me is powerful and shocking. It provides deep, unique insights into racism in America and should be essential reading.

Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. Serpent's Tail. $22.99

Originally published at northmelbournebooks.com.au February 2021

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama

Idealism clashes with reality in this thoughtful and revealing memoir.

A Promised Land was supposed to cover Barack Obama’s entire presidency, but it stops after 700 pages at 2011. A second volume is in the wings.

Let it be said at the outset, this is a very fine memoir. Its standout feature is an intellectual honesty that allows Obama to confront his personal limitations and the limitations of US democracy. Everywhere the overarching theme is the clash between idealism and reality. Good policy regularly takes a backseat to pointless political bickering and naked self-interest. US democratic politics doesn’t lend itself to reform and improvement, but is frustratingly weighted to maintain the status quo.

Often Obama fondly remembers his younger idealistic self, romantically wishing he could join progressive global protest movements, but finding himself inert, ironically hamstrung in the world’s most important political office. The US presidency might seem to confer power, but the reality is it is often a straitjacket. For all the personal sacrifices to attain the presidency – family, privacy, a normal life – a question constantly hangs in the air: how much is really being achieved? For the most part, achievement is measured in the ability to stop even worse things happening.

It is this honesty and candour that makes A Promised Land so compelling. The book gives a penetrating view into the presidency (we learn much about how the office actually works) and exposes the limitations of power. Obama remains optimistic about change, but this memoir, while deeply insightful, is also a sobering reminder of blunt political realities.

A Promised Land will go down as one of the great political memoirs.

A Promised Land, by Barack Obama. Vintage. $65

Biased: The New Science of Race and Inequality, by Jennifer Eberhardt

Social scientist and professor of psychology, Jennifer Eberhardt, examines how we hold racial biases.
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The brain, it turns out, likes to categorise information, putting things into simple groupings, allowing us to navigate busy, complicated daily life. Instinctively, before we even think, we apply this to the faces we meet. Whole races get lumped together in our minds. Fascinatingly, the latest neuroscience reveals that from a very young age we are better equipped at differentiating the faces belonging to our own race. We can see the individual, whereas when asked to identify people of other races, we struggle. White people see black people as a vaguely homogenous group, all looking the same. Jennifer Eberhardt tells of her own struggle differentiating white faces when she first went to a majority white school, having grown up in a predominantly black community.

Bias is hardwired in us and must be managed. From this scientific launching pad Eberhardt takes the reader on a fascinating and disturbing history of racial bias in America. So much has been written on the topic, and one may be tempted to think they already know the subject inside and out, but Biased proves that to be wrong.

Racial biases against African-Americans work at just about every social and economic level, creating entrenched disadvantage. Eberhardt quotes one dispiriting study, where researchers sent off dummy job applications. One set of applications had typically African-American names, such as DeShawn and Shanice, while the other had typically white names. The white names got the bigger response. These results have been replicated in other studies.

Another study, this time examining bias against women, tested job applications for professional orchestra musicians. Applicants were asked to audition “blind”, behind a curtain. Carpet was even laid out to mask the sound of women's heels. The results showed that women were hired at a much greater rate if the examiner didn't know they were women. An ingrained bias exists that men are better musicians.

Is there a way out of bias? We can manage it better by slowing down our reactions. It's when we make lighting quick decisions that our biased, reptilian brain takes over. Employers, institutions, even websites, need to implement tools that help us think twice. Some online platforms are trying to weed out racial bias by making users read and agree to relevant terms and conditions. Research has found this has a positive effect.

Jennifer Eberhardt's Biased is a cracking good read, sure to completely change the way we think about bias. Its mixture of science, research, history and personal story makes it endlessly fascinating. A game-changing, enlightening book that will make you re-examine your own behaviour.

Biased: The New Science of Race and Inequality, by Jennifer Eberhardt. Published by William Heinemann. RRP: $35

Winners Take All, by Anand Giridharadas

American journalist Anand Giridharadas pulls back the veil on the world's rich and powerful, exposing a class of anti-democratic, self-serving elites and the courtiers that serve them.

In 2011 writer and former business consultant Anand Giridharadas was made a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a prominent think tank. Giridharadas was a bit mystified, as the Aspen Institute only takes on proven entrepreneurs successful in the business world and he was not an entrepreneur. Nonetheless, you don't knock back invitations to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful at Aspen, and so he went.

Giridharadas would participate in four one-week sessions over two years where prominent business leaders attempted to solve the world's most intractable problems. He found himself making friends with the rich and powerful, enjoying the jet setting lifestyle. But eventually cracks started to appear. Troubling inconsistencies presented themselves. The rich made money by exploiting the poor, harming the environment and many other greedy and selfish actions. The people who were responsible for so many of the world's problems believed only they could fix them.

The result of Giridharadas' conflicted conscience is Winners Take All, an intellectually rigorous critique of powerful elites and the prevailing orthodoxy that business is better at solving problems than grass roots activism and politics. It also presents stunning insights into the psychology of the rich and powerful. They feel themselves to be victims, unfairly under attack from critics, when all they are trying to do is save the world - and get rich in the process. This sensitivity to criticism means anyone lobbying for their support must temper their language: appeals must be framed positively, with no mention of the ill effects their industries produce. The result is a small, elite group living in an intellectual bubble, sealed off from the world. As Giridharadas explains, they are globalists, shifting their money and resources wherever it will make the best returns, while the rest of the population are locals, loyal to place and community. A convincing argument is made for the success of Trump and Brexit: people voted against globalism, sick of being told what to do by freewheeling elites, and in favour of  local values.

Winners Takes All is all the more compelling for being an insider's account. The book's main argument is that democratic politics – problem solving by the people, for the people – has been insidiously eroded by the growing power of a rich, distant, technocratic elite. Their power has been so complete that it has also changed our thinking. We now look at the world's problems and how to solve them through the prism of big business. Giridharadas explains this phenomenon – social, economic and political – in a language that is refreshingly direct and devoid of theory and jargon. It's probably the most important book you'll read this year.

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, by Anand Giridharadas.
Allen Lane $29.99

Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work), by Gwynne Dyer

Staff review by Chris Saliba

Many words have been written about the Trump and Brexit phenomena, trying to find a logical reason for these seemingly irrational voter outbursts. Renowned Canadian journalist and historian Gwynne Dyer tackles the subject in Growing Pains.

From an historical perspective, Gwynne Dyer argues that humans are hard wired for an egalitarian way of life. Before the advent of agriculture, humans lived in bands of no more than a hundred people. Equality and co-operation allowed these smaller communities to survive. Then came the development of agriculture, the human population exploded and tough, brutal hierarchical political systems were needed to make large-scale civilisation work. Now, we are coming to another major crossroads in human development. We are returning to our egalitarian ways: societies everywhere aspire to have government by democracy.

How does this fit in with Trump and Brexit? Interestingly, Dyer calls Trump the canary in the coal mine. He has alerted us to the fact that a noxious gas has been allowed to infect the body politic. This noxious gas is an inequality that has been expanding for the past three decades. Neoliberalism, which came into full swing under Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, has seen worker wages stagnate, while the rich have gotten richer. Before this period of neoliberal economics, productivity gains were passed onto workers. Since the 1980s, those same productivity gains have gone to the top tier of earners. (Dyer presents stark statistics that show this erosion in worker pay packets, despite their contribution to the economy.)  Automation further threatens wages and jobs in the future.

So, according to Dyer, the reason for so much voter rage is simple: gross inequality, getting worse and worse over a long period. Furthermore, he demonstrates that political and economic elites have simply ignored this anger. Voters finally decided to trash this economic orthodoxy by voting Trump and Brexit.

How to restore the equilibrium? Dyer writes strongly in favour of a Universal Basic Income (UBI), a modest, regular living wage paid to all. A UBI won’t be a silver bullet, but it will be a way of reducing inequality and giving people back their dignity.

Gwynne Dyer’s writing is always punchy and witty. His work as an historian and close watcher of global politics gives his insights an added piquancy. Growing Pains is an arresting book, free of ideological cant. It will appeal to readers wanting fresh eyes looking at an often over analysed problem.

Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work), by Gwynne Dyer. Published by Scribe. ISBN: 9781925322637 RRP: $29.99

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From the Corner of the Oval Office: One Woman's True Story of her Accidental Career in the Obama White House, by Beck Dorey-Stein

Staff review by Chris Saliba

A funny, whip-smart, warts-and-all memoir from inside the Obama White House.

In 2012 Beck Dorey-Stein found her career in a bit of slump and didn’t know what to do. Answering an ad on Craigslist for a stenographer at a law firm, she halfheartedly applied. To her surprise, she soon found out the job was actually working for the Obama administration. Her job involved a jet set lifestyle, following the president and his entourage around the world, recording interviews and press conferences, then typing up the transcripts.

It was a dream job: meeting important people, travelling to amazing places, making great friends. But there was a down side when the private and professional became intertwined. Dorey-Stein started a romantic relationship with one of the male staffers. It would put her on an emotional roller coaster that didn’t let up for the five years she worked for Obama.

In this very confessional, warts-and-all memoir, Dorey-Stein lays it all bare: the mistakes she made in pursuing the wrong man, the hurts she suffered, the friends she betrayed. The book is also a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall peek into how a slick, well oiled presidential machine works. There are the hierarchies, the protocols, the career chess moves. At times, Dorey-Stein paints a bleak picture of  Washington DC culture, full of ambitious, successful people who are not particularly happy.

From the Corner of the Oval Office is written in a punchy, quick-witted style. It’s breezy and candid. Once opened, you won’t be able to put it down.

From the Corner of the Oval Office: One Woman's True Story of her Accidental Career in the Obama White House, by Beck Dorey-Stein. Published by Bantam. ISBN: 9781787630888 RRP: $35 

Release date: 16th July

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The Limits of Power, by Andrew J. Bacevich

This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but here goes. I was just doodling on the Internet at work, and brought up the Amazon website. You know how Amazon ‘remembers’ what items you’ve looked at recently. Well, it had this list of ‘recommended’ books that I read, and The Limits of Power, by Andrew J. Bacevich was one of them.

Anyhoo, I read briefly one of the Amazon reviews, and it talked about how the author layed a lot of blame for America’s current situation at the feet of the electorate. Myself, I’ve often had a theory that the quality of the vote equals the quality of the politician. When people whinge about how bad their politicians are I often think, well, that’s easily solved. Stop voting for them, and actively demand better ones.

I totally loved The Limits of Power. Bacevich is a professor of history and ex-army man. Tragically, he lost his only son, Andrew John Bacevich, First Lieutenant U.S. Army to the Iraq war in 2007.

Bacevich puts forth his argument under three main themes: the profligacy that is built into America’s consumer economy (which even affects political decision making); the overreach of American foreign policy and its snake oil merchant leaders (most notably Ronald Reagan); and its military crisis, over run by civilian ‘experts’ obsessed with technocratic solutions (prime example here is Donald Rumsfeld.)

There’s no beating around the bush in this pithy 182 page book. Bacevich doesn’t waste the reader’s time. It’s a relief when you read these books and know that the author has spent a long time figuring out in his or head what they are on about before committing it to paper. Bacevich has obviously thought deeply and at length on what he writes about. This is someone who writes out of genuine conviction and concern.

For all of that, Bacevich’s program is a pretty simple one. The Limits of Power is a book that really begs for the reinstatement of common sense in politics and policy making. In economics, he calls for nothing less than the nation to live within its means. America is in a state of chronic over-reach, thinking that controlling Middle Eastern oil, and global geo-politics in general, will make the country happy and prosperous. Bacevich points out that this is in fact having the opposite effect.

My favourite part of the book was where he held up as an example of useful common sense President Jimmy Carter’s exhortation to the country to use less oil and start thinking about conservation. This was during the oil shocks of the 1970s, when OPEC raised prices sky high. (Please note, Bacevich is also critical of Carter’s performance as president.)

This policy of conserving energy was unpopular. Then comes along Ronald Reagan who says Americans deserve to be able to consume as much energy as they want, whatever the cost. (Didn't Reagan remove the solar panels Carter had installed at the White House as soon as he got in?)

This is what allows Bacevich to be so critical of the American public. They embraced Reaganomic with all of its fake, glitzy glamour.

Once again, the overall tone of this book is common sense. It’s not making the US any happier a country by being so over extended – Americans consume too much and try to control too much of the world in the deluded belief that this will make them happy. It’s not.

This is a good book for anyone living in a decadent democracy living beyond its means. For anyone fed up with the West’s empty consumer culture. For anyone sick of smooth talking technocratic politicians who don't speak in plain English.

The ABC’s Background Briefing program recently ran a podcast of a talk by Bacevich on the Afghanistan war. It’s worth a listen here.

Bad Money, by Kevin Phillips

Kevin Phillips has been intimately studying the American economy in a series of fascinating books over the last decade. His overall thesis is that all countries that became arrogantly imperial rose to power and then fell away in much the same way. They all rode some new found energy source to get them ahead, and once they got going, they married their booming economies to arrogant religious ideas. I probably haven’t explained it very well, but in nutshell I think that explains Phillips’ overall argument.

For example, the Dutch used and exploited wind and water as forms of energy in the 18th century and ran a formidable imperium; then the British discovered coal and created the steam engine in the 19th century, helping them create the British Empire; and finally, the Americans discovered oil, which gave them enormous power.

The interesting thing for all these societies was that once they became powerful they developed an arrogant religion that explained their success in divine terms. God loved them so much he made them rich. Look at U.S. fundamentalist religion today, and its evangelical prosperity theology.

Alas, all these powerful countries were eventually overtaken by some new, smart, energetic nation on the make. Phillips thinks we will see this next nation emerge in Asia.

I’ve read Phillips’ previous two books, American Theocracy and American Dynasty. This one is pretty much an update on the subject matter of those books. For those who don’t know by now, the US has far too much debt and its dependence on foreign oil is a huge problem. Worse still, the oil is coming from unstable regimes like Saudi Arabia. Phillips is pretty pessimistic that the democratic process can save America. The electorate simply can’t concentrate on the complex problems at hand.

Phillips has a dry wit and I agree with much of what he says (or what I understand of what he says, as I know zilch about economics). His historical analysis is fascinating, as he refuses to be convinced of the current day optimism of everything working out well in the end. Like Shakespeare, when Phillips looks to the past, at the history of Holland and the British Empire, all he sees are analogies to the current day situation, prompting him to the conclusion that, indeed, ‘the past is prologue’.

This is not a cheerful book. But you must read Kevin Phillips!

The Next 100 Years, by George Friedman

The title and blurb for this book was interesting enough for me to want to give it a go. Friedman is an American political scientist and founder of his own private intelligence business.

Friedman sees the United States as the dominant global power for the next hundred years. He says that nations go through three stages in their rise and decline: barbarism, civilisation and finally, decadence.

Gore Vidal once joked that the United states went from barbarism to decadence without stopping for civilisation. Friedman has the opposite view. He believes that the US is not in decline, as many on the left like to think, or dream, but rather in an early barbaric, immature period. Europe, he says, or more pointedly, countries like France and Germany, are in a state of decadence. They don't believe in anything. (Sounds like Donald Rumsfeld's derisive line about France being old Europe.)

The basic idea of this book is, by using the intellectual discipline of geopolitics you can basically map the broad outlines of what the future will be like. The discipline of geopolitics considers the many physical factors that make up the characters, and hence destinations, of nation states. Things like where a country is situated, closeness to other nation states, resources etc. etc., all determine the character of a country.

More interestingly, Friedman implies these factors over ride the democratic determination of the voters themselves. No matter who the US votes in as president, they will be unable to change the country's 'destiny'. In this case, the US pursuing its role as a global hegemon.

This raises rather curious questions. Friedman paints a picture of a militarily and technologically dominant US, controlling everything on the earth’s surface from space. The way it’s painted here, you get the impression of this militaristic behemoth, connected in some way to a democratically elected polity.

Democracies, you would think, were supposed to work like this: the people elect governments to do what they want. It turns out democratic processes in the end don't count for much. What really drives democracies like the United States is a mixture of things like destiny, the military and technolgy.

I don't mean to sound cynical about Friedman's theory, because it's an interesting one, and one that has been discussed by other people, even the likes of John Pilger. That author has long said that no matter how liberal the president elected, the US always pursues its program of global power. Nonetheless, it's an interesting problem to contemplate.

Anyway, that all aside, what's the book like? Well, the first half I found interesting and absorbing. Friedman is a smart and learned guy about international affairs. He makes lots of interesting points. Because my knowledge of international politics is limited, I can't say whether what Friedman says is right or wrong, but it seemed he made a strong case for his opinion on global history and contemporary events.

That's the good part.

Then you get deep into the second part of the book, and whoa! Things just seem to enter the realm of science fiction. In one chapter on the future of war technology Friedman calls a space centre a 'Battle Station', then informs us he's called it that simply because he thinks it's a 'cool name'. Bad move. It makes the author look like a teenage kid getting excited about a new toy. Then again, he is describing the US as being in an adolescent phase. Maybe Friedman is a part of that adolescence.

The trouble with The Next 100 Years is, the further the book predicts out, the more you wonder how on earth can we know what major wars will happen in 2080? It just seems utterly ridiculous.

Friedman says at the beginning of the book that if you'd told people in 1950 what life would be like in 2000, they would have thought you mad. In the author’s words, 'common sense' cannot be used to predict the future. But if we as people cannot employ common sense, then what do we have? Friedman gives us his science fiction fantasy.

It then comes down to this. You can only take the second part of the book as a kind of subconscious dream of the author. Indeed. the second part of the book reads like a Donald Rumsfeld wet dream. It's hard not to think that the author simply believes in America's right to rule the world, unquestioned, which is pretty scary.

I must admit, I did find some of the sections describing future technological innovation as utterly enticing. No wonder the author gets so intoxicated. How will we get our energy in the future, once the oil runs out and cuts in carbon emissions are agreed upon by all countries? Answer: massive solar panels in space that will suck up massive amounts of energy and then shoot it back to earth. The bad news for greenies like me is that this energy will be used for war. Bummer!

George Friedman has written other books on the future of war technology. These parts of The Next 100 Years I found fascinating, and would certainly look at pursuing some of his other writings.

This book to me reads like a visceral fantasy of unrivalled American power into the next 100 years.

Down to the Crossroads, by Guy Rundle

I'm quite partial to Guy Rundle's world view and politics. In this running commentary and reportage on the 2008 American primaries and election campaign, Rundle riffs on all that has been wrong with left-of-centre politics, why the Democrats have been so useless at providing a real alternative to the status quo.

Rundle admits an initial cynicism with the simple 'hope' and 'change' message of Obama. He writes about things as he sees them through the campaign, so we get the author's initial reactions to what he sees and hears, without the revisions that the final election result would later prompt. Hence there are passages where Rundle thinks Obama is running a bad campaign, or doesn't know what he's doing. We're lucky it wasn't the political pundits running the Obama campaign, or the outcome would have been very different.

Rundle shows (even by his own example) how political experts and commentators were really wrong, and didn't pick up what was happening out in voterland. People wanted change, but didn't know how to make it happen. They just needed someone to come along who could convey it in a language that was not drenched in the cynical, day-to-day political / media language that we hear everyday. Lots of people criticised the Obama message as all pie-in-the-sky stuff, but maybe they were wrong, and people did want inspirational language and little detail.

No matter how you feel about Obama, you must be impressed by his achievement. A candidate that came out of nowhere, managed to capture the Democratic nomination against the presumptive heir Hillary Clinton, and then went on to win the presidency. He did this without a traditional powerbase, but rather mobilised a genuine grass roots movement. Let me say this again, because I think this is what makes him unique and a bit of a genius: he mobilised many, many people who would not usually give a fig about politics, got them door knocking and donating money, got them to actually believe they could make a difference. This is an extraordinary achievement, and I think it has not really been that well noted in the media.

Now whether he delivers is another thing altogether. Maybe he'll turn out to be a complete dud. Whatever happens, he certainly changed the language of politics.

Down To The Crossroads is a pretty free wheeling ride. It's warts and all first person journalism. Rundle's a pretty snappy writer, and he likes to use lots of pop culture references. Sometimes these references jar, sometimes they're a bit self indulgent or tacky. Yet on the whole I found this a really enjoyable ride, and I think Rundle does a terrific job at summarising cultural and political phenomena in a snappy and pithy language. He made me laugh quite a bit too.

This is a book that takes a leftish political angle, so if your politics are more conservative, you may not enjoy Mr Rundle's commentary. His style is pretty scruffy too. But it all worked fine for me. If you want to read a book that will make you feel positive about politics and the possibility of change, you should give this book a go. It deserves a strong fan base.

Rundle:

"The right never understood why those two words - 'hope' and 'change' - could command such power, could push millions to be out putting leaflets in letterboxes on cold March mornings in Billings, Montana. They mocked those who brandished such motifs, never realising that is was they who could not understand the deep meaning of those two single syllables, that their incomprehension was a measure of their own killing cynicism. Given a time machine, I would, of course, go back to the start of the primary process and sign-on - figuratively and perhaps literally - to the Obama campaign from the get-go. To be honest, my thinking for several months of it corresponded to Hillary Clinton's advisor Mark Penn, whose internal notes to his candidate suggested that the whole rainbow politics thing was an illusion - 'save it for 2050'."

Quarterly Essay Issue 32: American Revolution, The Fall of Wall Street and the Rise of Barack Obama, by Kate Jennings

I keep getting sucked into reading the Quarterly Essays from Black Inc. Books when I should know better. In my defence, their titles and authors always make them seem so interesting, but then you read and you think, is that it? The intellectual climate in this country is pretty dire, if these essays are the best that is on offer. They’re just so bland and tepid, unless I’m missing something.

Kate Jennings, who worked for years as a speech writer on Wall Street, should have been able to write a sizzling essay into the crash of the American financial system and the rise of Obama, but she doesn't. Instead we get this lazy, self indulgent 90 page blab.

Jennings says nothing at all of interest, but just gives us a set of her diary clippings for the campaign. We read about her television viewing habits, friends she's hung out with, books and articles she's read. Big deal.

If someone had submitted this to me I'd have rejected it. I presume someone commissioned it, and was stuck with what she submitted. (Guy Rundle would have been a better pick for this, but he’s done a similar job in a book for Penguin, which I’ve almost finished reading.)

On balance, I'd have to say a lot of the Quarterly Essays are nothing more than hot air. They all feature left wing, progressive writers. I fear they're doing their cause, if they have one, a disservice.

The problem with these essays could perhaps be fixed somewhat if the editors cast their net a bit further out. The writers that are chosen for these essays are rather an homogenous lot. The intellectual mood and temperature is always the same. Why can’t they write something cracking and fiery and polemical?

There are heaps of other writers out there, but yet we get repeat essays from the same authors. Why not get writers with a different view? Um, interesting writers.

Something, anything, needs to be done to improve the quality of these essays. Yes, I'm a sucker, and will no doubt read further essays. I am intrigued to see what Anabel Crabb's upcoming essay will deliver.

Sigh. I think I've said enough on the matter. I hope this posting doesn’t sound too narky, but this essay left me feeling really ripped off.

Vote for Me: The Long Road to the White House, by John Barron

John Barron is an ABC journalist with an interest in American politics. Besides writing this book, he also made a film of his experiences covering the 2008 US election. Contemporary academic books on politics can be dull, dull, dull. Barron avoids this by holding back on his own personal opinions and rather reporting what he finds 'on the ground'. This approach makes the book quite a lively and refreshing read. It's all the small details that make the book intriguing, like how Hillary Clinton gets around, the security detail that she commands, and even down to the fact that she doesn't sweat when out on the hustings in stifling heat.

Barron interweaves this with lots of titbits of American history. He also conducts interviews with important figures from the past. There is also lots of interesting interview material with people close to the main players in the 2008 election.

Vote for Me is a breath of fresh air in political reporting from someone who sees American politics pretty much as a personal hobby. This alone makes it a guaranteed fun read.

The Three Trillion Dollar War, by Linda Blimes and Joseph Stiglitz

The title of this book sounds a bit callous or sensationalist but it’s actually a very humane and sympathetic look at all the costs – human, social and economic – that the war in Iraq has cost the United States and the world.

Surprising, the authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Blimes say that the three trillion dollar price tag they give to the Iraq war is a conservative estimate, and that in the long run the war will very likely cost many more trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the most heart wrenching part of this book is the description of the poor treatment Iraq war veterans get on their return home. They are made to jump through hoops to get their rightful entitlements, endure a slack attitude to their health problems, and are just generally not well looked after.

It is these future costs, health and medical for returned soldiers, that are so overlooked in the price tag for the Iraq war. As the book states, the US is still paying entitlements to returned soldiers from the First World War (there are three of them). So you can see how far these war costs can stretch into the future.

Critics of Blimes and Stiglitz could argue that the authors were against the war from the beginning, and so of course they would write a book like this. While they do admit being against the war, and seeing it as a terrible waste, this book is a good eye opener on all of the unthought of costs that war brings. They just spread out and seep into everything. Blimes and Stiglitz even take into account the extra administrative costs involved in paying veterans' claims.

Then there are the costs to the other economies of the world. The jump in the price of oil due to the Iraq war has cost the world trillions.

This is a humane book that takes a unique look at the hidden and overlooked human and financial costs involved in running a long, unpopular and unsuccesful war. It will sadden you deeply.

What Happened, by Scott McClellan

Despite Scott McClellan being a Christian, a conservative Republican and, after all he'd experienced in the White House, someone who was still convinced of George W. Bush’s basic decency, I was in very broad agreement with most of the views expressed in What Happened.

McClellan describes the major woes of the current US political system as ‘the permanent campaign’. All political leaders conduct themselves as though they were in a state of permanent media, cultural and political warfare. Media cycles must be managed, everyone must stay on message, and leaders become so insulated that they actually start to believe as true their own spin. All politics becomes destructively partisan, with everything reduced to petty point scoring, when larger and more important issues loom, demanding serious attention.

The author sees this type of politics having reached its zenith under the eight years of the Clinton administration. McClellan supported George W. Bush because of his stated objective to move American politics away from this toxic style of politics. Bush had previously been Governor of Texas, and had proved in that position that he could be bi-partisan and work constructively with the Democrats to get good outcomes for the citizenry. (McClellan also notes that it was pretty much a part-time position, and this appealed to Bush.)

Yet to McClellan’s dismay, the more he experienced of the Bush administration, the more he realised they were merely solidifying the ‘permanent campaign’ – secrecy, culture wars, media manipulation became worse under Bush.

McClellan ends his book by calling for an end to this sort of politics, urging people to be more open minded and to at least talk to people with different views.

Beyond that, the book is filled with fascinating portraits of all the major players in the White House, the good, the bad and the ugly. McClellan strikes me as a reasonable and even tempered observer of events, and so I trust what he has written.

People viewing George W. Bush’s administration from the outside are always tempted to view all the participants to be absolute rogues, but McClellan refreshingly insists most are very decent people trying to do what is right.

What McClellan writes about Bush will not be what most want to hear, but to me his observations ring true. He says that the real reason Bush invaded Iraq was because he genuinely believed he could create a democratic Middle East. The phony reason, the author admits in hindsight, was weapons of mass destruction and talk of Saddam Hussein being a threat to world peace. Bush is in effect a fantasist, someone not living in the real world. He confuses imagination with reality.

Condi Rice is described as an expert PR practitioner, and not much more. Karl Rove is an out and out liar. And Dick Cheney is described as ‘the magic man’, someone who ‘never showed his cards and never disclosed how he made things happen’.

I also agreed wholeheartedly with McClellan’s disdain for our ‘gotcha’, point-scoring media culture. Everything is reduced down to petty points. Tiny things are blown up into scandals whereas the bigger issues should be what is covered.

The Bush administration on the other hand tried to control the media too much and was not open and honest with the American people. One of the great lessons of What Happened is that lies and deception are in end completely self-defeating. The truth will always out. It’s just a matter of time.

Witness all the shenanigans around the Valerie Plame affair, the secret agent whose name was leaked. How much media time and energy was taken up and wasted in trying to get to the bottom of the whole affair. If only the White House had been up front at the beginning.

McClellan must in essence be an optimist when it comes to people’s personalities. He doesn’t really lay the faults of the Bush administration at Bush’s feet directly, but lays the blame also with the whole ‘permanent campaign’ culture that has arisen. Bush and company probably simply could not think outside of those parameters.

Laying all blame with George W. Bush could create problems of its own. If we continue to think all these problems are the result of one person, and expect they will all disappear when Bush leaves office, then we’re somewhat deluded again. The man may go, but the culture will remain. Look at how much money Barack Obama spent on advertising for his campaign.

I think this is a really important book for those who want to see the tone and quality of politics improve, for those also who want to see it become more democratic.

McClellan comes across as a bookish, intellectual, conservative gentleman who doesn’t succumb to hyperbole and the ingrained hate campaigns of politics. He continues to see those who enter politics doing so with honourable intentions. He points out a myriad of problems that need fixing, urges us to purge the anger out of politics, and insists the system can’t run effectively without honesty and transparency.

What Happened is a pleasant surprise and essential reading for any citizen interested in a politics we should all strive for, no matter what your political views are.