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2.71 AVERAGE
2.71 AVERAGE
What credit should we give a work that quotes Dan Quayle TWICE?
A deeply unsatisfying work of ponderous, diaherretic prose by a man anxious to secure his place in history while making a buck or two in the process. It would have been more humane for Bolton to simply sell copies of his exhaustive notes, monuments to the banality of bureaucracy they must be, and tedious. So, so tedious. This is the history book a nascent historian gets their hands on, reads, and departs the stage of history forever, because it is boring, mean, small-minded and petty.
Fuck John Bolton. You already dislike him, but this book will cement that as he discards narrative structure, starfucks & drops references so that you will properly understand how smart he is while he simultaneously explains his use of Latin, dangles participles, and uses "silver-colored" instead of just writing "silver." So yes. Fuck John Bolton. Fuck him for his superior attitude, savior complex, racism, and need to be in the club so bad he gets off on his "bad boy" image.
And fuck him, too, for what he knew on Ukraine, which, when you reach the end of this book, is unclear. Too much, he says, while also saying that his testimony would not have mattered. Much like his tenure, if his book is to be believed, in the Trump White House, because this is a story of not getting much of anything done.
What you will learn here (if you are new to John Bolton) is that he hates "radical Islamic terrorists" (and they all are, if you'll just open your eyes), the French, Nikki Haley, Jim Mattis (a lot of the book), Democrats (specifically Obama, Warren & Sanders), the media (who stumble & lumber everywhere), that ISIS is Obama's fault, Iran is worse than ISIS anyway, and COVID-19 is China's fault, though the US undoubtedly fucked up our response. See? You can agree with him on some stuff. Also, he hates Rand Paul, but who doesn't?
He also doesn't seem to like women much unless they're Jeane Kirkpatrick. Gross.
And what does this tell us about Trump? Nothing much new: Trump is dumb, lazy, scattered, has no attention span, and by his own admission, "only knows about money," so that's what he talks about. He's violent, abusive, and manipulative, but he sucks at it and is easily manipulated, particularly by Xi & Putin, but also by literally everyone else. He doesn't clock the difference between a personal & a professional, official or business relationship, probably because to him there isn't one. He also doesn't care about hostages, injured war veterans, tried to profit on Venezuelan oil and Arab expeditionary forces and doesn't know when Tiananmen Square was.
Read this if you are a completist or enjoy pain, or for an example of what not to do, but otherwise? Skip Bolton. He'd never listen to you, so why not ignore him?
A deeply unsatisfying work of ponderous, diaherretic prose by a man anxious to secure his place in history while making a buck or two in the process. It would have been more humane for Bolton to simply sell copies of his exhaustive notes, monuments to the banality of bureaucracy they must be, and tedious. So, so tedious. This is the history book a nascent historian gets their hands on, reads, and departs the stage of history forever, because it is boring, mean, small-minded and petty.
Fuck John Bolton. You already dislike him, but this book will cement that as he discards narrative structure, starfucks & drops references so that you will properly understand how smart he is while he simultaneously explains his use of Latin, dangles participles, and uses "silver-colored" instead of just writing "silver." So yes. Fuck John Bolton. Fuck him for his superior attitude, savior complex, racism, and need to be in the club so bad he gets off on his "bad boy" image.
And fuck him, too, for what he knew on Ukraine, which, when you reach the end of this book, is unclear. Too much, he says, while also saying that his testimony would not have mattered. Much like his tenure, if his book is to be believed, in the Trump White House, because this is a story of not getting much of anything done.
What you will learn here (if you are new to John Bolton) is that he hates "radical Islamic terrorists" (and they all are, if you'll just open your eyes), the French, Nikki Haley, Jim Mattis (a lot of the book), Democrats (specifically Obama, Warren & Sanders), the media (who stumble & lumber everywhere), that ISIS is Obama's fault, Iran is worse than ISIS anyway, and COVID-19 is China's fault, though the US undoubtedly fucked up our response. See? You can agree with him on some stuff. Also, he hates Rand Paul, but who doesn't?
He also doesn't seem to like women much unless they're Jeane Kirkpatrick. Gross.
And what does this tell us about Trump? Nothing much new: Trump is dumb, lazy, scattered, has no attention span, and by his own admission, "only knows about money," so that's what he talks about. He's violent, abusive, and manipulative, but he sucks at it and is easily manipulated, particularly by Xi & Putin, but also by literally everyone else. He doesn't clock the difference between a personal & a professional, official or business relationship, probably because to him there isn't one. He also doesn't care about hostages, injured war veterans, tried to profit on Venezuelan oil and Arab expeditionary forces and doesn't know when Tiananmen Square was.
Read this if you are a completist or enjoy pain, or for an example of what not to do, but otherwise? Skip Bolton. He'd never listen to you, so why not ignore him?
Perhaps you disagree with Bolton’s opinions on how to conduct foreign policy, and you most likely disagree with his decision to not testify when it could have made a difference. However, it is undeniable that Bolton has succeeded in writing a highly detailed and well paced account of his time at the White House - a fine book.
I bailed after getting to about 35%. John Bolton is a fool, Trump is a bigger fool, and I realised this book told me nothing I don’t already know - that Trump is a vain, shallow, stupid man, and that Bolton knew this but got a job with him anyway.
This book is written in a turgid fashion, with Bolton keen to point out how clever he is (quoting in Latin, then explaining to us stupid people what the Latin meant), and how right he was (apparently he made no mistakes at all during his time in this administration). You get the feeling that Bolton would squeeze the excitement out of the moon landings if he could put a bit of Latin into a paragraph. I felt like I was wading through a poor essay from a thick person trying to prove himself clever.
We learn nothing from this book. We’ve read all this stuff before. It’s plain as day to anyone. Yet half of the US still wants to vote for this fool.
Bolton comes out of this worse than Trump, though. He’s helped this man achieve some ridiculous policies, so the left won’t like him. But he’s now published this, so the right won’t like him either now. Not sure who wins, other than a nice retirement check.
This book is written in a turgid fashion, with Bolton keen to point out how clever he is (quoting in Latin, then explaining to us stupid people what the Latin meant), and how right he was (apparently he made no mistakes at all during his time in this administration). You get the feeling that Bolton would squeeze the excitement out of the moon landings if he could put a bit of Latin into a paragraph. I felt like I was wading through a poor essay from a thick person trying to prove himself clever.
We learn nothing from this book. We’ve read all this stuff before. It’s plain as day to anyone. Yet half of the US still wants to vote for this fool.
Bolton comes out of this worse than Trump, though. He’s helped this man achieve some ridiculous policies, so the left won’t like him. But he’s now published this, so the right won’t like him either now. Not sure who wins, other than a nice retirement check.
While this does give some insight into White House affairs and Trump´s relations with other country leaders, it barely adds anything new (of substance) to the conversation and was overall not enjoyable to read. Glad I didn´t pay for it.