Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order

by Mark Crispin Miller

"A critical contribution to America's internal, life-or-death debate over foreign and domestic policy."― Booklist Read a newspaper or catch the news on television and you might get the impression that America's current leadership is "mainstream": perhaps a bit more conservative and in its foreign policy more belligerent than its predecessors, but still a federal authority that functions within America's political traditions. But as Mark Crispin Miller argues here with great clarity and effect, we are in fact living in a state that would appall the Founding Fathers: a state that is neither democratic nor republican, and no more "conservative" than it is liberal. He exposes the Bush Republicans' contempt for democratic practice, their bullying religiosity, their reckless militarism, their apocalyptic views of the economy and the planet, and―above all―their emotional dependence on sheer hatefulness. Abraham Lincoln once observed that, if the United States should ever be subverted, "it will be conquered from within." And that is exactly what has happened.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2004

About the author

Mark Crispin Miller graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in 1971, Johns Hopkins University with an MA in 1973, and a PhD in 1977. He is currently Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He is known for his writing on American media and for his activism on behalf of democratic media reform.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Provides some not-so-well-known information about Bush/Cheney, not only what's gone on during their administration but about Bush prior to taking office. A little too partisan at times and some of the psychological analysis, such as it is, isn't very informative and doesn't seem that credible. Worth the read, however.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book, scary though. Whatever happened to our freedoms?

[Brenda Conry · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Miller tends to read into quotes his own interpretations, his descriptions of the people behind the right wing, and their motives, makes for some fascinating and frightening reading.