Daydream Believers, Fred Kaplan
Daydream Believers, Fred Kaplan
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Daydream Believers
How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

Author: Fred Kaplan

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 7 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/04/2008


Synopsis

America's power is in decline, its foreign policy adrift, its allies alienated, its soldiers trapped in a war that even generals regard as unwinnable. What has happened these past eight years is well known. Why it happened continues to puzzle. In Daydream Believers, celebrated Slate columnist Fred Kaplan combines indepth reporting and razorsharp analysis to explain just how George W. Bush and his aides got so far off track and why much of the nation followed. For eight years, Kaplan reminds us, the White House and many of the nation's podiums and opinion pages rang out with appealing but deluded claims: that we live in a time like no other and that, therefore, the lessons of history no longer apply; that new technology has transformed warfare; that the world's peoples will be set free, if only America topples their dictators; and that those who dispute such promises do so for partisan reasons. They thought they were visionaries, but they only had visions. And they believed in their daydreams. Packed with stunning anecdotes, hidden history, and a level of insight only Fred Kaplan can bring to issues of national security, Daydream Believers tells a story whose understanding is central to getting America back on track and to finding leaders who can improve both the world and Americas position in it by seeing the world as it really is.

About Fred Kaplan

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column in Slate and has also written many articles on politics and culture in for the New York Times, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and many other publications. A Pulitzer Prize winner and a former reporter for the Boston Globe, he is the author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed; Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power; and The Wizards of Armageddon. He graduated from Oberlin College and has a Ph.D. from M.I.T. Fred lives in Brooklyn with his wife.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Anders on February 15, 2011

I heard of this book in a collection of conspiracy theories, and wanted to read it because during the course of the Bush-era, my gut-reactions to the newsreporting of America's political leaders' statements and actions were often too angry and uninformed to really think about what those really meant......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on September 29, 2014

It's a shame that Kaplan's method is so poor and his approach so impressionistic, unfair, and polemical, because I find plenty to agree with in his opinions about policy. Irritated by Kaplan's haphazard method for substantiating assertions, I started paying attention to which factual claims in the t......more

Goodreads review by Mark on March 14, 2016

This is a tough book to "really" like because it documents the impact that the neocons and vulcans have had in wrecking American policy goals and regional stability during the Bush administration. How can anyone like this? The players that have been the most destructive include Rumsfeld, Cheney, Ric......more

Goodreads review by Drew on April 12, 2008

It is easy for me to look at the pronouncements of the Donald Rumsfeld and say, "Criminy, that guy is an idiot." But of course that's a cop-out. A quick look at Rumsfeld's resume shows that he's got some kind of talent in spades. He was elected to congress when he was 30, was appointed the youngest......more