rick2's review against another edition
2.0
This is not a bad book. It’s just not saying anything of real significance. Is it one of those books that hashes and rehashes semi recent events and comes up with a witty analysis to show how smart the author is. Now the author is pretty smart and the analysis is pretty witty. But it’s not actually getting at anything of substance. That’s not a knock against this book specifically but more against books of this type.
“Big business does bad things”
“Trump tells lies”
“Welcome to late stage capitalism”
“Government is a soulless machine”
And while I’m impressed with the authors quoting of Marx and other deep thinkers. I couldn’t shake the feeling that most of this book is just intellectual porn. It’s going to make you feel temporarily righteous for reading, but empty inside afterwards. It doesn’t address core issues, it misses layers of nuance and leaves the reader exactly where they started except the reader is a bit more indignant and self righteous than before.
“Big business does bad things”
“Trump tells lies”
“Welcome to late stage capitalism”
“Government is a soulless machine”
And while I’m impressed with the authors quoting of Marx and other deep thinkers. I couldn’t shake the feeling that most of this book is just intellectual porn. It’s going to make you feel temporarily righteous for reading, but empty inside afterwards. It doesn’t address core issues, it misses layers of nuance and leaves the reader exactly where they started except the reader is a bit more indignant and self righteous than before.
stengl1021's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
This book should be required reading for every civics class. No matter the age. Hedges discloses what exactly has been happening behind many of American’s eyes for the last two decades. The pervasive greed inhibiting political action and the slow downfall of a once great empire. Many books have been written about these phenomena in the last five years but what Hedges does different, in my opinion, is not use Trump as the fall guy but simply views him as a tool using this decayed system to his and his followers’ advantage. I’d place this book up there as a modern version of “The People’s History of the U.S.”
jpinney2's review against another edition
5.0
Shockingly prescient in 2020, i finished this book while under quarantine and having just lost my job. It’s a great analysis of the rot in America, how we got here and where we’re going to end up. Chris Hedges is a modern day Nostradamus.
marvindbooks's review against another edition
4.0
Informative book about an empire in decline by one of the brilliant thinkers of our time. Eye-opening, well-researched, yet slightly depressing. A bit too long and redundant at certain points.
deannepeter's review against another edition
3.0
The message the author delivers in this book is powerful and rang true in many respects. The major problem for me was the book was too graphic - and didn't need to be - to get the point across.