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 | | American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips ISBN-10: 9780670032648 ISBN-10: 0-670-03264-6 ISBN-13: 9780670032648 ISBN-13: 978-0-670-03264-8 Hardcover 2004-01-05 Viking Adult Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description 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. | ||
Amazon.com Review Paraphrasing a passage from Machiavelli's The Prince, Kevin Phillips writes, "a ruler can ignore the mob and devote himself to the interests of the ruling class, gulling the inert majority who constitute the ruled." He then says, "Borgia references aside, 21st-century American readers of The Prince may feel that they have stumbled on a thinly disguised Bush White House political memo." These pointed words would sting regardless of who uttered them, but coming from Phillips, a former Republican strategist, they have an added piquancy. In American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Phillips traces the rise of the Bush family from investment banking elites to political power brokers, using their Ivy League network, vast wealth, and questionable political maneuvering to obtain the White House and consequently, shake the foundation of constitutional American democracy. Citing the Bush family mainstays of finance, energy (oil), the military industrial complex, and national security and intelligence (the CIA), Phillips uses copious examples to show the dangerous alliance between the Bushes' business interests (huge corporations such as Enron and Haliburton) and the formation of national policy. No other family, Phillips says, that has fulfilled its presidential aspirations has been so involved in the ascendancy of the arms industry and of the 21st-century American imperium--often at the expense of regional and world peace and for their personal gain. It is hard to tell what offends Phillips the most: the Bushes' systematic deceit and secrecy, their shady business dealings, their cronyism, or their family philosophy that privileges the very wealthy and utterly dismisses all the rest. It is clearly all of these things combined. But at the top of Phillips' list is the dynastic nature of their family power, for it is that concentration of power and influence that strikes at the heart of our democracy. Past administrations have transgressed, albeit not so egregiously, and other political families have had dynastic ambitions. But none have succeeded as thoroughly as the Bushes. Jefferson and Madison would be horrified, and according to Phillips, we should be too. --Silvana Tropea | ||
Reviews | ||
Like most, I drank the Kool-Aid... I feel like a complete IDIOT (especially since I hold a degree in Political Science from a top-20 college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) for having fallen so hard and fast for the Bush clan. Well...let's be fair...I like the wives. This is a riveting piece which gives so much context and specificity to WHY the 90's turned out the way they did. Especially in the case of "W", we see fully fleshed-out as in the Oliver Stone film that desire to at all costs please Daddy. We see the lies (which the author generously and euphemistically terms "deceit"). We see the often clandestine and nefarious oil connection with names that later would be made out to sound almost Satan-like to all Americans. We see the sicko hand of Karl Rove in helping shape often non-existent and frigthening scenarios so as to keep a huge "thumb" on the public mood and to keep "W"'s approval ratings sky-high (except toward the end of term 2). All-in-all...this and Phillips' follow-up book "American Theocracy" should be required reading for anyone wanting to look back and properly assess the damage of (mostly) the younger Bush's two terms. But let's not put ALL the blame on "W". He had an excellent role model to follow, and this meaty book does, indeed, cover in great detail the foundings and development of the family and then its later-questionable bed partners. Christian Carswell is a wedding photographer...not an investigative journalist. But after tearing through this scarily enlightening book by a guy who IS (and an extremely highly-regarded-by-his-peers writer at that) you'll almost wish you could give up your current occupation and do what Kevin Phillips does. It must be fun and rewarding unearthing so much never-reported information and packaging it into a linear and very readable / enjoyable volume that not only clues-in the clueless masses but also pays handsomely! | ||
Required Reading I wish this book had been read widely before the 2004 election. And even more, that it had been published before the 2000 election. It puts a whole different perspective on the forces that have brought us to such unhappy consequenses in the USA. I found this book to be highly informative, knowlegeable and chilling. A good read even though it is too late to change history. And a valuable lesson as we march into the next decades. Dynasties are anti-democratic. | ||
The Bush Dynasty? From the Preface of his book Kevin Philips says-"My original ambition was to identify and explain the Bush-related transformation of the U.S.presidency into an increasingly dynastic office,a change with profound consequences for the American Republic,given the factors of family bias,domestic special interests,and foreign grudges that the Bushes,father and son,brought into the White House." Mr.Philips fulfills that ambition in this book. He delves into the family history and alliances,from Yale to Skull and Bones and in some cases to the O.S.S. and eventually the C.I.A. He explains "Texanomics" quite well. A kind of low-tax,low-service,high economic stratification brand of Southern economic conservatism. G.W.Bush's allegiance to big business and the astronomical tax rebates to companies like G.E. and the ever famous Enron are detailed in the book. Also discussed in the book are G.W.Bush's ties to Ken Lay and his lobbying for energy deregulation. I didn't know that Enron had been a large supporter of the Republican team in the Florida recounts of the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush is in a class by himself when it comes to prevarication. It is no exaggeration to say that lying has become Bush's signature as president."- The American Prospect quoted in the book. Mr.Philips tells how the Bush-Cheney pairing in the White House is historical in that it brought two former energy company executives together. The author gives a clear description of what the military-industrial complex is and it's history. He details the major part petroleum has played in past as well as present wars. It's historical significance in the outcome of World War II can't be argued. This book explores the religious aspect of the junor president Bush and his relationship with evangelical voters in contrast with his father's relationship to the same group of voters. This is a very detailed book about the Bush and Walker families and the businesses they were involved in as well as the transformation of both president Bushes from business to their eventual presidencies. | ||
Surprise! I was a little disappointed after reading the title that it wasn't easy potshots at the world's most worthy target, but rather a fact-based, rather dry account of the last century's rise of dynasty, military-industrial complex, and of course 4 generations of Bushes' feeding frenzy on said trends. But call me lazy. | ||
Exellent Book!! A historically accurate review of the Bush multi generational quest for both national and international financial and political power with evidence that politics were a means and wealth the ends; as we continue to see in current events concerning that family today. A must read for anyone who wants at least a basic understanding of how insatiable thirst for absolute power and base, crass greed are at the heart of what and how the United States of America came to be and is currently run. When President Bush said to a group of the richest Americans during his re-election that:"...some refer to you as the 'have mores'; I refer to you as My Base." He wasn't joking; that is his brotherhood, his extended family, the real and only Americans in his world view. | ||