Reviews

Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye

y3ti's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

2.5

tpanik's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

This portrait of Senator Joe McCarthy is thorough, enlightening, and dramatic, as Tye manages to capture every contradiction, organize every inconsistency, and showcase every parallel to modern politics. A perfect fit for those who want to understand today by studying yesterday.

This was an ARC from Library Journal's Day of Dialogue in Boston, where Tye graciously signed my book with a broken arm, generously sharing stories of his research with all of us.

themightycheez's review against another edition

Go to review page

informative slow-paced

aloyokon's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

An arresting, frightening, enraging, and surprisingly even-handed account of the career of Wisconsin's most famous demagogue, and of his connection to one orange-faced billionaire with a really bad hairdo.

adkwriter15's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

I have to be honest with you: the audiobook makes it almost impossible to review the book itself. While the information revealed by McCarthy's recently released archives is fascinating and worth reading about, the way this book/audiobook was put together makes me furious. The audiobook is interrupted every 60 seconds or less by another footnote, which half of the time does not need to exist or should have been included in the main text. By the time you get back to the main text, you've forgotten what the major point was. Also, the book is put together in an odd way in which things seem out of order or come back around 3 or 4 times. Altogether, I've come out feeling like I learned some interesting bits of information that I could not for the life of me reconstitute as a narrative. I really liked the Larry Tye book I read on Bobby Kennedy, which I also listened to as an audiobook and had none of these issues. Perhaps this is good in book form, but not as an audiobook at all.
More...