Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Regardless of whether or not you like Rachel Maddow or agree with her politics, and I'm not generally much of a fan, you owe it to yourself to read this book. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about the U.S., our heritage, military policy, and future. You don't have to agree with her but you should at least consider what she has to say on the topic. This is a terrific book. I believe that Ms. Maddow has done a remarkable job of defending her argument. I saw her on Meet The Press and she said she saved this topic for a book because it required "a long argument". Reading her long argument felt like being on an island of common sense in a vast ocean of madness. This book is not partisan although many will see it that way. She reserves as much criticism for Obama's secret wars as she does those of other presidents. The bulk of the early part of the book is about Reagan's secret wars and the Iran-Contra scandal and then she traverses the next couple of decades, including the last decade of seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, and ends with Obama's secret CIA drone wars. Her wit is very sarcastic and scathing at times, but this can be overlooked as one considers the actual content of her arguments. I'm sure that to people who don't agree with her will find this part of her writing to be off-putting, but we can all be bigger than that. There is substance in this book and the substance is what should be considered. The tone is just part of being a passionate human and actually gives the writing some character and humor. She calls the military superstructure we have built a leviathan. It's a great beast that is out of control and has gained a life of its own that is disconnected from average Americans and control by Congress in ways the founders never intended. The President has way too much control to wage war without Congressional approval and the Congress is weak and fails to exercise what oversight it does retain. Americans are for the most part unaffected by the perpetual war with the exception of a tiny percentage of soldiers and their families. This is not the way it was supposed to be argues Maddow. She argues, quite persuasively, that the founding fathers never intended that we would be in a perpetual state war with a massive standing military for the President to use as he sees fit. There are parts of this book that are depressing and even downright scary. I think it hit bottom for me when she describes how there is some formula used to ignite hydrogen bombs that nobody knows how to make anymore. I guess they didn't write it down and all the people who knew how to do it are now gone. Doesn't that give you a warm fuzzy? In any case I highly recommend this book to every thinking reader whether you think you will agree with the author or not. At the very least you will come away with better view of the other side, and that view is one that should make us all very uncomfortable.