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A review by sfletcher26
The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations by John McCain, Mark Salter
4.0
Where to start? Well with a number of disclaimers I suppose.
1. I'm not an American.
2. Were I an American I would probably ally myself with the Democrats.
3. I find the hawkish, jingoistic political rhetoric difficult to take.
4. I never really knew who Senator McCain was other than the bloke who Obama beat when he became President. So it's only in the past year, with his high profile run-ins with Trump and his sudden death that McCain has really come to my attention.
Watching all of the footage of him on the TV and Internet he seemed to be a man of principle in a world (the US Senate) that at times has seemed completely unprincipled and massively partisan.
Many will already know the story of McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals, Naval fighter pilot, tortured Vietnam POW, US Senator and Presidential candidate. And whilst I was aware of some of this there was so much about him of which I was unaware and so much about him to admire.
In this memoir McCain begins by looking back at his Presidential campaign and it's highs and lows. He talks candidly about his mistakes and is honest about them and doesn't try to deflect them on to others.
He then goes onto look at his time in the Senate and what he sought to achieve in that time, outlining his vision of what US foreign policy should be. He is critical throughout of not just Trump but of the social Milieu that has given rise to him including Putin's Russia. There are times when this does stray into US triumphalism which is a shame but in some senses it is what it is.
My one gripe about the book is that he never looked at the issue of gun control and the continued spate of school shootings. It has been such a huge issue in the US in resent years that it feels a bit of a cop out not to have looked at it.
Whilst I don't think I would ever find myself agreeing with everything McCain believes in and supports I do feel I now understand where he was coming from and what he was hoping to achieve.
1. I'm not an American.
2. Were I an American I would probably ally myself with the Democrats.
3. I find the hawkish, jingoistic political rhetoric difficult to take.
4. I never really knew who Senator McCain was other than the bloke who Obama beat when he became President. So it's only in the past year, with his high profile run-ins with Trump and his sudden death that McCain has really come to my attention.
Watching all of the footage of him on the TV and Internet he seemed to be a man of principle in a world (the US Senate) that at times has seemed completely unprincipled and massively partisan.
Many will already know the story of McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals, Naval fighter pilot, tortured Vietnam POW, US Senator and Presidential candidate. And whilst I was aware of some of this there was so much about him of which I was unaware and so much about him to admire.
In this memoir McCain begins by looking back at his Presidential campaign and it's highs and lows. He talks candidly about his mistakes and is honest about them and doesn't try to deflect them on to others.
He then goes onto look at his time in the Senate and what he sought to achieve in that time, outlining his vision of what US foreign policy should be. He is critical throughout of not just Trump but of the social Milieu that has given rise to him including Putin's Russia. There are times when this does stray into US triumphalism which is a shame but in some senses it is what it is.
My one gripe about the book is that he never looked at the issue of gun control and the continued spate of school shootings. It has been such a huge issue in the US in resent years that it feels a bit of a cop out not to have looked at it.
Whilst I don't think I would ever find myself agreeing with everything McCain believes in and supports I do feel I now understand where he was coming from and what he was hoping to achieve.