I had the chance to write about The Unraveling for Open Letters Review. You can find my review here: https://openlettersreview.com/posts/the-unraveling-by-bob-bauer

Thank you to Rowman & Littlefield for providing me with access to the book!

This book is an interesting look at political maneuvering throughout the years from an insider, a former White House counsel among other positions. If you are a left-leaning reader, you will enjoy it more than if you are right-leaning. Since I am the former, I thought it was pretty fascinating -- but also depressing -- that our government throughout the years has been filled with petty, power-hungry politicians who care more about themselves than their constituents or democracy. While some of the writing is dry, Bob Bauer definitely is knowledgeable, and I appreciated when he admitted his mistakes on certain issues. Bauer covers ground from early Colonial times to present day. I admit I am terrified if a certain ex-president gets re-elected, but it is so interesting to see how our country's political history is cyclical in nature. I just hope common sense prevails in our lifetime.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Rowman Littlefield Publishers for the ARC and the opportunity to review this book.

Bob Bauer draws upon his own experiences to help identify the root causes of the current US political crisis. Undoubtedly an important subject, though the book itself will very dry.

This book is written by someone practicing law in the US political arena for half a century. The author reflects on his own professional life at a time when he sees US political culture changing in disturbing ways. It seemed to me that both the latter observation and his time of life were the things that brought these issues to the forefront of his mind. Using his own experiences and considering where he now thinks he went wrong, the places where his actions at the time made sense but perhaps wouldn't be repeated in hindsight, and where he still feels he got it right are excellent ways to make what might otherwise be a rather dry book into a very readable and informative one. As someone with no legal background, I found the examples very helpful as practical illustrations. As a personal history, it is also eye-opening as a way to see what got us to the current situation. It does seem clear that ethics are sorely lacking in US political culture and the author is right to highlight that--who in the world doesn't think politicians should be ethical, after all. Even those who are behaving in clearly unethical ways would probably agree with that--they would just twist their definition of ethics into knots if need be, in order to justify their behavior. And that's part of the problem. It's all well and good to argue for a return to an ethical political culture, but first one has to have an agreed upon definition of what that looks like, which is harder (impossible?) to do. This is one of those situations that relies on people do behave in responsible ways and that can never really be relied upon. Still, the book is fascinating, informative, and very readable. For anyone interested in US political history, I can recommend it!

Mr. Baeur is a Democrat political attorney whose practices ha been working for Democratic party, various politicians and Presidents. I had high hopes for this book but ultimately struggled to finish it. Parts of the book were interesting, particularly how the impeachment process has been politicized. I struggled with Mr. Baeur's style of writing and found the constant use of "I" off putting.