American Dynasty - by Kevin Phillips (Paperback)

About the Book

A former Nixon White House strategist, Phillips details the making of the Bush family dynasty across four generations, documenting how it has exemplified many of the growing trends in American political life and how it has touched all the major "Establishment" bases. Phillips is the bestselling author of "The Politics of the Rich and Poor" and "Wealth and Democracy."

Book Synopsis

The Bushes are the family nobody really knows, says Kevin Phillips. This popular lack of acquaintance--nurtured by gauzy imagery of Maine summer cottages, gray-haired national grandmothers, July Fourth sparklers, and cowboy boots--has let national politics create a dynasticized presidency that would have horrified America's founding fathers. They, after all, had led a revolution against a succession of royal Georges.

In this devastating book, onetime Republican strategist Phillips reveals how four generations of Bushes have ascended the ladder of national power since World War One, becoming entrenched within the American establishment--Yale, Wall Street, the Senate, the CIA, the vice presidency, and the presidency--through a recurrent flair for old-boy networking, national security involvement, and political deception. By uncovering relationships and connecting facts with new clarity, Phillips comes to a stunning conclusion: The Bush family has systematically used its financial and social empire--its "aristocracy"--to gain the White House, thereby subverting the very core of American democracy. In their ambition, the Bushes ultimately reinvented themselves with brilliant timing, twisting and turning from silver spoon Yankees to born-again evangelical Texans. As America--and the world--holds its breath for the 2004 presidential election, American Dynasty explains how it happened and what it all means.

Review Quotes

"[A] devastating examination.... That this powerful argument has been made by Kevin Phillips should be a measure of how seriously it should be taken. He is not an idealogue of the left and he is not a conspiracy theorist.... American Dynasty is an important, troubling book that should be read everywhere with care." --Washington Post

"Kevin Phillips is no hotheaded bomb-thrower but a seasoned wise man with deep roots in the Republican party. American Dynasty is as depressing as it is brilliant and important." --Chicago Sun-Times

"If Howard Dean (or any other Democrat) is elected president of the United States this year, he (or she) will owe a debt of gratitude to Kevin Phillips." --New York Times Book Review

"Given this left-liberal publishing phenomenon, where evil Bushies lurk around every civic bend dismantling our constitutional rights, it is with welcome relief that political commentator and one-time GOP strategist Kevin Phillips has stepped into the fray ... With great skill, Phillips illuminates how the Bush Dynasty has long used such old-boy organizations as Yale's Skull and Bones, the CIA, Dillon Read, and most recently the Carlyle Group to further its main objective: political-economic power." --Mother Jones

"A must-read for anyone skeptical of President Bush and other members of the Texas clan..." --New York Daily News

"American Dynasty, written with the passion of a modern-day Tom Paine, recalls all too clearly the Founding Father's words, little more than 200 years later." --Seattle Times

About the Author

Kevin Phillips has been a political and economic commentator for more than three decades. A former White House strategist, he is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and NPR and writes for Harper's and Time. His books include New York Times bestsellers The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy.