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A review by alicia_ann_reads
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.0
Disclaimer: I went into this book with a very mediocre understanding of basic US Politics (I'm Canadian)
I read this as part of a bookclub.
My bookclub peeps get 5 stars for helping me understand things
The book gets 3 stars.
It was incredibly informative, you could tell it was well researched by the fact that 30% of the book was actually notes, although nothing in the actual text had labelled endnotes.
Sometimes I felt like I was reading a suspense book where I already read all the spoilers.
The author does a good job of meandering to his point but starting it, going off on several related tangents (while name dropping at least 20 new people per chapter) to finally circle back to the original point. Only by this time I've often forgotten who we were talking about.
[I want to tell you about this, but before I can do that I need to tell you about this and this, but to understand that you really need to know about this, okay back to the first this, a conclusion and then finally the first point is made]
If I'd have had a little prior knowledge about who some of these people were, perhaps iad have followed along a little better.
The second half of the book which covers the convention, primary and the final campaigning was pretty interesting.
I read this as part of a bookclub.
My bookclub peeps get 5 stars for helping me understand things
The book gets 3 stars.
It was incredibly informative, you could tell it was well researched by the fact that 30% of the book was actually notes, although nothing in the actual text had labelled endnotes.
Sometimes I felt like I was reading a suspense book where I already read all the spoilers.
The author does a good job of meandering to his point but starting it, going off on several related tangents (while name dropping at least 20 new people per chapter) to finally circle back to the original point. Only by this time I've often forgotten who we were talking about.
[I want to tell you about this, but before I can do that I need to tell you about this and this, but to understand that you really need to know about this, okay back to the first this, a conclusion and then finally the first point is made]
If I'd have had a little prior knowledge about who some of these people were, perhaps iad have followed along a little better.
The second half of the book which covers the convention, primary and the final campaigning was pretty interesting.