Crossing the Rubicon - by Mark Danner (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Essays on fascism, the war on terror, Abu Ghraib, Dick Cheney, the Iraq War, the Bush-Gore and Trump elections, and many other subjects from one of America's foremost political thinkers. These provocative pieces have been gathered from the early 2000s to the present and chronicle America's slide away from democracy to a new era of barbarism.

Mark Danner, one of our most astute political journalists, has worked ceaselessly for the past quarter of a century to report on the state of American politics. Crossing the Rubicon collects Danner's best essays, which depict with uncanny prescience the erosion of democratic institutions and the inexorable rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. From the Bush-Gore election to the War on Terror and torture at Abu Ghraib to the election of Donald Trump, Danner traces just how we came to be where we are today in this increasingly polarized and partisan world. Included in this collection are finely detailed portraits of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the masterminds behind the Iraq War, as well as searing critiques of mass media's outsized role in politics. Together, these timely and provocative essays provide an overview of the decline and fall of liberal America, as well as the advent of a new and disturbing barbarism.

About the Author

Mark Danner has written about foreign affairs and American politics for more than two decades, covering Latin America, Haiti, the Balkans and the Middle East among other stories. He was for many years a staff writer at The New Yorker and contributes frequently to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and other publications. He teaches at the University of California and at Bard College and speaks and debates widely about America's role in the world.