Shall We Wake the President?: Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office

by Tevi Troy, Joseph I. Lieberman (Foreword)

The history of presidential dealings with disasters shows that whatever their ideology, presidents need to be prepared to deal with unexpected crises. In recent years, the expectations have grown as the disasters seem to appear to be coming more frequently. Since 2001, numerous unpredictable crises, including terror attacks, massive storms, and an economic collapse, have shaken Americans to their core. It seems as if technology, for all of its beneficences, also provides mankind with increasingly powerful ways to wreak destruction, including nuclear explosions, bioterror attacks, and cyber-attacks. In addition, instantaneous and incessant communications technologies send us word of disasters taking place anywhere in the nation far more rapidly, giving disasters an immediacy that some may have lacked in the past. In 21st century America, the eyes of the American people look to the president to lead the response to whatever disasters happen to strike. President Obama and his team learned this and were taken aback by the sheer number of crises that a president needed to deal with, including swine flu, BP s Macondo oil spill, and the Somali pirates who attacked an American ship. Many of these did not quite reach disaster status, but Obama s reaction to the constant stream of crises was both revealing and Who thought we were going to have to deal with pirates? In Shall We Wake the President?, Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and former senior White House aide and deputy secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, looks at the evolving role of the president in dealing with disasters, and looks at how our presidents have handled disasters throughout our history. He also looks at the likelihood of similar disasters befalling modern America, and details how smart policies today can help us avoid future crises, or can best react to them should they occur. In addition, he provides information on what individuals can do to prepare for disasters. This book includes sections on how American presidents have dealt with a variety of disasters, including health crises, terror attacks, economic upheaval, bioterror and cyber-attacks, natural disasters, and civil breakdown. In doing so, Shall We Wake the President? will provide lessons from presidents of the past that will inform policy strategies for presidents of the future."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

265 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[Ari · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not recommend this book. I have met the author, who travels in similar DC circles to my parents. I think well of the author, even. But the book is not good.

Based on the blurb and title, I had expect straight-up narrative history, but actually it's about 30% history, 40% background on potential disasters and disaster response, and then 10% advice to presidential administrations on disaster response, and 20% advice to the _public_ on disaster response. This makes for a jumbled book, full of things I already know, like the importance of hand-washing, and with rather little analytical meat.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing! With a title like Shall We Wake the President? Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office, could I be justified in thinking it would include detailed historical accounts of how presidents and their staff dealt with disaster at a personal and experiential level? If you want a dry, policy-oriented capitulation of the most obvious lessons learned from past events, this may satisfy at some level. If you are a history enthusiast--especially presidential history--who delights in learning what real people dealt with at the emotional and personal level, I'd look elsewhere.

[Brannock · Rating 1 out of 5]

I strongly disliked this book. The wildly misleading title fits neither the dry, meandering, and poorly structured policy prescriptions nor the woefully partisan takes on presidential history. Would not recommend, given that the heavy bias towards Republican administrations was difficult to separate from historical fact. I got the not-so-subtle underlying theme—that individuals cannot always rely on their government to protect them from all of life’s dangers—the first time around; the dozen or so discussions of personal responsibility weren’t necessary.

Unfortunately, credibility was a problem throughout: I’m not sure I can repeat with confidence much of what I read. I’ll probably even reconsider getting a book from the same publisher again.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bit of a silly book and totally lacking the drama that the title suggests. Published in 2016 on the eve of Donald Trump’s election, Tevi Troy’s perspective in some areas seems almost quaint: in the face of disasters, natural or man-made, Presidents have to worry about the national debt and deficit while they comfort and reassure the nation. Debt? Deficit? President Donald Trump would have to divert resources from the Wall and his Space Force to even begin to address any crisis, actions he has proven himself unwilling to do in Puerto Rico and other hard-hit areas. As a former advisor to George H. W. Bush, Troy’s take is solidly conservative, and as a result the book is packed with helpful advice for surviving a crisis on your own when the President fails to come to your rescue (which with this President in charge is probably not so silly). His mentions of climate change’s effects in exacerbating natural disasters are extraordinarily delicately worded, unforgivable for any thinking human being. His analysis of historical Presidents are the best parts of the book, but there isn’t enough of this; I did enjoy his rehabilitation of Herbert Hoover’s reputation. And now I’m going to go re-supply my first aid kit and stock a month’s worth of food and water.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going by the title and Amazon review I bought this believing it would be a historical look at how presidents have managed past disasters and a look at what could happen in the future.

I should have read the reviews on Goodreads. That would have prevented me from buying what turned out to be more of a somewhat dry text on what presidents should and should not do as well as what individuals should and should not do in emergencies. This book was about 20% history, %80 percent policy. I initially had hoped for it because the very first topic was disease outbreaks and given I’m reading this on the tail end of the Covid outbreak it felt timely. And credit, Troy looks at Wilson’s reaction to the Great Influenza of 1918 and what he did wrong. Other parts I found interesting was the look at civil unrest towards the end when the author discussed the 1960s riots.

But if you’re looking for a strict historical book on detailed disasters and how presidents responded to them, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a guide on how to survive potential disasters if the government is out of order then this might help - but you can find that info for free online.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Definitely not a calming read but it was pretty insightful about how the world of politics and presidential declarations of emergency work, a topic about which I admittedly know nothing. I personally am glad it was not as history heavy although it would have been nice to have some sort of interviews or stories from presidents as they dealt with the disasters during their terms. He did predict the upcoming pandemic, but then again so did a lot of people. It kinda jumped around but each chapter had closing remarks so it was an easy enough book to put down and come back to. The title makes the book sound more dramatic than it was.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I was looking forward to more "real stories" and less policy, you have to hand it to the author who predicted the pandemic and had concrete ideas for the administration to handle it properly. He's a proud Republican, made clear in one-sided writing, but clearly, Donald Trump didn't read this. If he had, I wouldn't be reading it in quarantine almost one year into this nightmare.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written review of American disaster policy, with anemphasis on 21st century disasters. The opening chapter speaks of the need to prepare for a pandemic, but sadly this 2016 book was unheeded.

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

I put this on my to-read list a few years back, for reasons I can no longer remember. But it was available at my new fave booksource, the Portsmouth Public Library, so…

Well, first: caveat lector. (I seem to be saying that a lot lately.) From the title, I assumed this would be mainly a history book. How James Madison handled the Year Without a Summer, for example. And even its Dewey Decimal Number (973.099) is clearly in the US History/Presidents class.

And there's some history, indeed. But it's mainly advice on how various sorts of disasters should be handled, based on key examples from the past, mostly the recent past. And not only handled by US Presidents, but also Joe and Jane Citizen. Past events are classified as handled pretty well (FDR and the Great Depression; Nixon and Hurricane Camille) or botched (Dubya and Katrina; LBJ and late-sixties riots).

Which is fine. Just unexpected. Maybe I should have read the reviews a little more carefully.

Another downside: the author, Tevi Troy, has a writing style I can only classify as "bureaucratic". It's like he's typing a very long ass-covering memo to his boss. (With an unstated bureaucratic premise: "If you don't follow this advice, woe betide you. When the shit goes down, I won't be blamed, I'll have a paper trail.")

After that, the book is mainly notable for detailing all the different ways natural and man-made disasters can strike. Natural: pandemics, climate, vulcanism, earthquake. Man-made: economic collapse; terrorism, including cyberterrorism and bioterrorism; civil unrest; attacks on the power grid. Egads.

And as far as advice goes, Troy gets pretty far down in the weeds. Like how to wash your hands effectively. (Hot water, plenty of soap, and keep at it long enough to sing "Happy Birthday" twice.)

What I didn't know: Woodrow Wilson was an even worse president than I thought. His sin here: not stopping US troop transports during the Spanish Flu pandemic, near the end of WWI, causing (Troy claims) a "great many" additional deaths. Troy also raises the possibility that Wilson's serious health issues when he traveled to Europe for treaty negotiations could have been caused by Spanish Flu, not the stroke more conventional historians blame. In any case, the negotiations were disastrous, a primary eventual cause of World War II, and Wilson's health issues were at the core of that. Sheesh.

[E · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it has one of the most misleading subtitles I've ever encountered. I thought it would be a history of presidential leadership in the midst of crises. It is nothing like that. Instead of looking BACKward, it is almost entirely a FORward look at what government (and yes, it's usually Uncle Sam in general that Troy is discussing, not the White House particularly) should do in various situations--biological attack, natural disaster, terrorism, Y2K-type tech meltdown, etc. Sure, he mentions a couple of presidential examples, at most, per chapter (and almost exclusively from the last 100 years, not 200), but they are discussed minimally and seem to have little impact on the rest of his argument.

Some of the material is quite good, but this book should have presented as a handbook for preparing for disasters at the Federal level. But that wouldn't have sold as many copies, evidently.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book makes you think back and then forward to what may be happening then how to respond