Scan barcode
A review by louisebray
Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept by Robert Spalding
1.0
This is only the second 1-star rating I’ve ever given a book, which is such a shame because there were actually a lot of very valid points made in this book.
However, the overt overtones of “USA is great, China is bad” right from the first page really made this book lose any credibility for me. This meant that the arguments presented were extremely one-sided, to the point that I couldn’t believe anything that was being said because the other side of the argument was never shown (except for “Chinese is bullying us”).
Maybe I could have looked past this, or at least accepted it more readily, if anything at all in this book had a source or a reference - but there was nothing. The only citations were from newspaper articles and alleged conversations the author had had with various people. Again, no credibility. What made this worse for me was that often the author would launch into a tirade, presented as fact, that begins with “There is little doubt that...” - in other words, he is making a broad assumption and using that in his argument against China.
The real cherry on the cake though was the blatant pro-Trump (and anti-Biden/Obama) propaganda sprinkled throughout the book - I’m not sure what the author’s agenda was in writing this book, but this was completely unnecessary and again, took away the credibility of the writing.
Overall, the topics raised in this book are incredibly important and I would like to learn more about them from a well-balanced and well-written perspective. Unfortunately this book just infuriated me far too much to gain much from it.
However, the overt overtones of “USA is great, China is bad” right from the first page really made this book lose any credibility for me. This meant that the arguments presented were extremely one-sided, to the point that I couldn’t believe anything that was being said because the other side of the argument was never shown (except for “Chinese is bullying us”).
Maybe I could have looked past this, or at least accepted it more readily, if anything at all in this book had a source or a reference - but there was nothing. The only citations were from newspaper articles and alleged conversations the author had had with various people. Again, no credibility. What made this worse for me was that often the author would launch into a tirade, presented as fact, that begins with “There is little doubt that...” - in other words, he is making a broad assumption and using that in his argument against China.
The real cherry on the cake though was the blatant pro-Trump (and anti-Biden/Obama) propaganda sprinkled throughout the book - I’m not sure what the author’s agenda was in writing this book, but this was completely unnecessary and again, took away the credibility of the writing.
Overall, the topics raised in this book are incredibly important and I would like to learn more about them from a well-balanced and well-written perspective. Unfortunately this book just infuriated me far too much to gain much from it.