Fear. Bob Woodward 2018. 357 Pages

This extensively researched book by the well-known Pulitzer Prize- winning Washington Post journalist does a thorough job of conveying to the reader the disorganization and chaos of the Donald Trump presidential campaign and the first 14 months of his presidency. More than that, it conveys the shallowness, egotism, ignorance, arrogance and vindictiveness of the president. But almost anyone who has not been living under a stone and has a brain has had multiple other sources of information that would lead to the same judgement. Apart from historians looking back on this time period and trying to make sense of it, who else needs more details about this example of chaos theory in action?

It is difficult for the average reader outside of the D.C. beltway, at least this average reader, to keep track of the dozens of acronyms, the ever- changing job titles and the revolving door personnel in the White House and the Pentagon. A list of acronyms, major personnel, and a time line with the dates of major events would have been very helpful to readers who don’t make a living analyzing politics.

The last date mentioned in the book is March 12, 2018, and the book was published by Simon and Shuster on September 11, 2018. That should have given the author, publisher, and intermediaries adequate time to get it polished into something coherent, with logical flow and decent grammar. Yet the flow is anything but logical with individual chapters jumping randomly from foreign policy, to immigration, to economics to environmental concerns and the interminable internal bickering, and jumping back and forward in time. The lack of proofreading is glaring- “By any reasoning, the exercise was serious preparation, but it was at this point, one available contingency on the shelf being practiced.” Although Woodward hints that when he uses quotation marks it conveys actual direct quotes, at times the use of these seems almost random. It seems obvious that this was a rush job by a journalist and a publisher with a tight self-imposed deadline, well aware that there would be a very short time interval in which to sell the story- and the book.

Definitely not worth $30.00