A New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2021
An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman's
deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full
effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is
upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued. --The New York Times
One of the most illuminating books to come out of the Trump era. --New
York Magazine
An examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had in
pushing American politics and society in an authoritarian direction
For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has
waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to
multiple ground wars, the era pioneered drone strikes and
industrial-scale digital surveillance; weakened the rule of law through
indefinite detentions; sanctioned torture; and manipulated the truth
about it all. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory,
but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of
Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized feature of American
politics and national security, expanding the possibilities for applying
similar or worse measures against other targets at home, as the summer
of 2020 showed. A politically divided and economically destabilized
country turned the War on Terror into a cultural--and then a
tribal--struggle. It began on the ideological frontiers of the
Republican Party before expanding to conquer the GOP, often with the
acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today's nativist resurgence walked
through a door opened by the 9/11 era. And that door remains open.
Reign of Terror shows how these developments created an opportunity
for American authoritarianism and gave rise to Donald Trump. It shows
that Barack Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on
Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. By the end of his tenure, the war
had metastasized into a bitter, broader cultural struggle in search of a
demagogue like Trump to lead it.
Reign of Terror is a pathbreaking and definitive union of journalism
and intellectual history with the power to transform how America
understands its national security policies and their catastrophic impact
on civic life.
