GREAT AGAIN
How to Fix Our Crippled America
Donald J Trump
Threshold Editions
The Making of Donald Trump
David Cay Johnston
NEVER ENOUGH
Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success
Michael D'Antonio
Thomas Dunne Books
TRUMP AND ME
Mark Singer
Tim Duggan Books
TRUMP REVEALED
An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power
Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher
TRUMP: THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE
Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life
Donald J Trump with Meredith McIve
YUGE!
30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump
G B Trudeau
Over the last year, we've been plunged into the alternate reality of Trumpland, as though we were caught in the maze of his old board game, "Trump: The Game," with no exit in sight. It's a Darwinian, dog-eat-dog, zero-sum world where greed is good, insults are the lingua franca, and winning is everything.
Books about Mr Trump tend to fall into two categories. There are funny ones that focus on Trump the celebrity of the 1980s and '90s - a cartoony avatar of greed and wretched excess and what Garry Trudeau (Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump) calls "big, honking hubris." And there are serious biographies that try to shed light on Mr Trump's life and complex, opaque business dealings, which are vital to understanding the judgment, decision-making abilities and financial entanglements he would bring to the Oval Office.
Perhaps because they were written rapidly as Mr Trump's presidential candidacy gained traction, the latest of these books rarely analyse the larger implications and repercussions of the Trump phenomenon. Nor do they really map the landscape in which he has risen to popularity and is himself reshaping through his carelessness with facts, polarising remarks and disregard for political rules.
For that matter, these books shed little new light on controversial stands taken by Mr Trump which, many legal scholars and historians note, threaten constitutional guarantees and American democratic traditions. Those include his call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" and the "extreme vetting" of immigrants; his talk of revising libel laws to make it easier to sue news organisations over critical coverage; an ethnic-tinged attack on a federal judge that raises questions about his commitment to an independent judiciary; and his incendiary use of bigoted language that is fuelling racial tensions and helping to mainstream far-right views on race.
A "semi-harmless buffoon" in Manhattan at the end of the 20th century - as the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, terms Mr Trump in a foreword to Mark Singer's book Trump and Me - has metamorphosed into a political candidate whom 50 Republican national security officials recently said "would be the most reckless president in American history," putting "at risk our country's national security and well being."
Two new books provide useful, vigorously reported overviews of Mr Trump's life and career. Trump Revealed, by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher of The Washington Post, draws heavily on work by reporters of The Post and more than 20 hours of interviews with the candidate. Much of its material will be familiar to readers - thanks to newspaper articles and Michael D'Antonio's 2015 biography (Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success) - but Trump Revealed deftly charts his single-minded building of his gaudy brand and his often masterful manipulation of the media.
It provides a succinct account of Mr Trump's childhood, when he says he punched a teacher, giving him a black eye. It also recounts his apprenticeship to a demanding father, who told him he needed to become a "killer" in anything he did, and how he learned the art of the counterattack from Roy Cohn, whom Mr Trump hired to counter-sue the federal government after the Justice Department brought a case against the Trump family firm in 1973 for violating the Fair Housing Act.
The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston - a former reporter for The New York Times who has written extensively about Mr Trump - zeros in on Mr Trump's business practices, arguing that while he presents himself as "a modern Midas," much "of what he touches" has often turned "to dross." Mr Johnston offers a searing indictment of his business practices and creative accounting. He examines Mr Trump's taste for debt, multiple corporate bankruptcies, dealings with reputed mobsters and accusations of fraud.
The portrait of Mr Trump that emerges from these books, old or new, serious or satirical, is remarkably consistent: a high-decibel narcissist, almost comically self-obsessed; a "hyperbole addict who prevaricates for fun and profit," as Mr Singer wrote in The New Yorker in 1997.
Once upon a time, such remarks made Mr Trump perfect fodder for comedians. In a 1990 cartoon, Doonesbury characters argued over what they disliked more about Mr Trump: "The boasting, the piggish consumption" or "the hideous decor of his casinos." Sadly, the stakes today are infinitely so much huger.
©2016 The New York Times News Service
How to Fix Our Crippled America
Donald J Trump
Threshold Editions
The Making of Donald Trump
David Cay Johnston
More From This Section
Melville House
NEVER ENOUGH
Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success
Michael D'Antonio
Thomas Dunne Books
TRUMP AND ME
Mark Singer
Tim Duggan Books
TRUMP REVEALED
An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power
Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher
TRUMP: THINK LIKE A BILLIONAIRE
Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life
Donald J Trump with Meredith McIve
YUGE!
30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump
G B Trudeau
Over the last year, we've been plunged into the alternate reality of Trumpland, as though we were caught in the maze of his old board game, "Trump: The Game," with no exit in sight. It's a Darwinian, dog-eat-dog, zero-sum world where greed is good, insults are the lingua franca, and winning is everything.
Books about Mr Trump tend to fall into two categories. There are funny ones that focus on Trump the celebrity of the 1980s and '90s - a cartoony avatar of greed and wretched excess and what Garry Trudeau (Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump) calls "big, honking hubris." And there are serious biographies that try to shed light on Mr Trump's life and complex, opaque business dealings, which are vital to understanding the judgment, decision-making abilities and financial entanglements he would bring to the Oval Office.
Perhaps because they were written rapidly as Mr Trump's presidential candidacy gained traction, the latest of these books rarely analyse the larger implications and repercussions of the Trump phenomenon. Nor do they really map the landscape in which he has risen to popularity and is himself reshaping through his carelessness with facts, polarising remarks and disregard for political rules.
For that matter, these books shed little new light on controversial stands taken by Mr Trump which, many legal scholars and historians note, threaten constitutional guarantees and American democratic traditions. Those include his call for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" and the "extreme vetting" of immigrants; his talk of revising libel laws to make it easier to sue news organisations over critical coverage; an ethnic-tinged attack on a federal judge that raises questions about his commitment to an independent judiciary; and his incendiary use of bigoted language that is fuelling racial tensions and helping to mainstream far-right views on race.
A "semi-harmless buffoon" in Manhattan at the end of the 20th century - as the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, terms Mr Trump in a foreword to Mark Singer's book Trump and Me - has metamorphosed into a political candidate whom 50 Republican national security officials recently said "would be the most reckless president in American history," putting "at risk our country's national security and well being."
Two new books provide useful, vigorously reported overviews of Mr Trump's life and career. Trump Revealed, by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher of The Washington Post, draws heavily on work by reporters of The Post and more than 20 hours of interviews with the candidate. Much of its material will be familiar to readers - thanks to newspaper articles and Michael D'Antonio's 2015 biography (Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success) - but Trump Revealed deftly charts his single-minded building of his gaudy brand and his often masterful manipulation of the media.
It provides a succinct account of Mr Trump's childhood, when he says he punched a teacher, giving him a black eye. It also recounts his apprenticeship to a demanding father, who told him he needed to become a "killer" in anything he did, and how he learned the art of the counterattack from Roy Cohn, whom Mr Trump hired to counter-sue the federal government after the Justice Department brought a case against the Trump family firm in 1973 for violating the Fair Housing Act.
The Making of Donald Trump by David Cay Johnston - a former reporter for The New York Times who has written extensively about Mr Trump - zeros in on Mr Trump's business practices, arguing that while he presents himself as "a modern Midas," much "of what he touches" has often turned "to dross." Mr Johnston offers a searing indictment of his business practices and creative accounting. He examines Mr Trump's taste for debt, multiple corporate bankruptcies, dealings with reputed mobsters and accusations of fraud.
The portrait of Mr Trump that emerges from these books, old or new, serious or satirical, is remarkably consistent: a high-decibel narcissist, almost comically self-obsessed; a "hyperbole addict who prevaricates for fun and profit," as Mr Singer wrote in The New Yorker in 1997.
Once upon a time, such remarks made Mr Trump perfect fodder for comedians. In a 1990 cartoon, Doonesbury characters argued over what they disliked more about Mr Trump: "The boasting, the piggish consumption" or "the hideous decor of his casinos." Sadly, the stakes today are infinitely so much huger.
©2016 The New York Times News Service