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American Dynasty : Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
by: Kevin Phillips

Used Price: $3.24
Collectible Price: $25.95
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Binding: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Amazon Remainders Account
Manufacturer: Amazon Remainders Account
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 416
Publication Date: January 05, 2004
Publisher: Amazon Remainders Account
Sales Rank: 499484
Studio: Amazon Remainders Account

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Editorial Review:

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

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- 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 ... Read More

Rating:

- 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.

Rating:

- 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 ... Read More

Rating:

- 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.

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