I only knew of Bob Woodward from Watergate, so I was expecting a more serious book.

This is basically just gossip with zero analysis, but it's well-sourced gossip so it is compelling. Woodward's attempt to preserve the exact words of the speakers adds some extra colour, and is the most interesting aspect of the book. ( )

Each chapter looks at a different moment in the Trump White House and how frustrated staffers and appointees scrambled to keep Trump from doing something that would undermine the country's interests. Clearly the man had no understanding of geopolitics and economic policies and stubbornly viewed them through his businessman lens. God bless those staffers and appointees; clearly they served their country by constantly clawing its leadership back off the cliff. Where would this country be today if not for them? ( )

Författaren och journalisten Bob Woodward har rapporterat med sällsynt auktoritet om åtta presidentskap, från Nixon till Obama. Nu avslöjar han med en aldrig tidigare skådad detaljrikedom det uppslitande arbetet i Vita huset under Donald Trump och hur presidenten fattar beslut i stora politiska in- och utrikesfrågor.
Boken bygger på hundratals timmar av intervjuer med förstahandskällor, anteckningar från politiska möten, personliga dagböcker, centrala filer och dokument. Fokus ligger på de explosiva debatterna och beslutsfattandet i Ovala rummet, situationsrummet, på Air Force One och i residenset i Vita huset.
Fruktan: Donald Trump i Vita huset är det mest ingående porträtt av en sittande president som någonsin publicerats under presidentens första ämbetstid.

If you spend most of your waking hours absorbing news from the White House, there is little new in this book. ( )

Let's be honest, this book is basically gossip. You don't need the first hand accounts of administration lackeys to understand Trump and his government. This administration is fairly transparent about its xenophobic and economic priorities.

There's this point about 2/3rds through Woodward's book where you start to wonder if his key sources really get challenged for being part of the policies of the Trump administration. It never happens. It makes for a strange lack of accountability in a book that subscribes to "a great man" theory as the theme, but with Trump being a grand buffoon. Doesn't this make the story not Trump's lies and stupidity but rather the utter moral failure of the cabinet and hangers-on that enable his rule?

Maybe history will be kinder to Woodward's expose of the inner workings of the White House. To me, Fear seems like a cautionary tale in regards to how access journalism misses the real story of Trump's political fortunes: adjacency to power turned Woodward's sources into craven enablers, not "adults in the room." ( )