Gershom D.

A truly compelling tale

Revisado: 03-05-19

The story of Gershom Sholem is of tremendous value. He is a towering figure of 20th century Jewish spiritual thought. His contribution is being understood more and more, and I was so grateful for the fully detailed picture of his life.
I was also very engaged with the author's story, and how he wove it into Sholem's narrative.

That said, the reader should have made an effort to attempt to pronounce Hebrew names, words, and places more accurately. It was totally obnoxious that the reader mispronounced the name 'Gershom'. There is no ambiguity that the name is pronounced with an 'sh'. In the Torah, the name is clearly spelled with the letter Shin, yet the reader pronounced it as though it was spelled with a Sin or Samek.

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Starts off well enough

Revisado: 11-21-17

The majority of the book tells an informative set of historical narratives. Towards the end, though, it diverges into a screed about how the BDS movement and pro-Palestinian rights groups are all a bunch of anti-Semites. Could have done without that.

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Rubbish

Revisado: 11-02-16

Just a bunch of Islamophobic garbage. Embarrassed It's in my library. Waste of time.

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Actually, a little tedious

Revisado: 03-31-16

I'm really into long, detailed military history, but I'm finding this one hard to stay with. It's not the reader's fault - he's great. I'll have to give this one a try again, but something's not clicking for me here.

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Interesting view from the inside

Revisado: 01-19-16

Fascinating insider description of the inertia of a wide array of public policy choices due to the preferences of the actors that make up the deep state in the U.S.

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Maddow does her own book right

Revisado: 04-23-12

Would you listen to Drift again? Why?

I have already listened to it a couple of times, not only is the information is compelling and interesting, but also because Maddow reads it, and does a great job.

Maddow presents a series of case studies illustrating the frustrating and sometimes alarming events that outline the elephant in the room that no one seems to want to address: the United States' ever-expanding militarism. I believe that unless we get a handle on this problem, the U.S. will wind up exactly like the USSR.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The author herself, because she's a tremendously compelling person.

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Read by the author. You would think that's good

Revisado: 12-22-11

What made the experience of listening to Top Secret America the most enjoyable?

The subject is fascinating, the research well-done and careful. The national security industry is, as we all had the sneaking suspicion, a gigantic scam, the details of which no-one without a security clearance will ever know. This includes your elected representatives in government.The sheer magnitude of this new industrial complex will make you laugh. Nervously.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Dana Priest?

My hound dog. A high-school student. A recent immigrant in their second week of ESL class. Any one of a number of well-qualifed narrators. Dana Priest's rendition of her own work is flat and dull. She often misses the punctuation and cadence of her own sentences. I'm not sure what it says about a book when the author cannot be bothered to read it so that it is expressive and engaging. She sounds like she's reading someone else's work for the first time.

If you could give Top Secret America a new subtitle, what would it be?

Why the United States is spending billions of dollars on

Any additional comments?

Great subject, great book, lousy narration.

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Grudgingly, I agree

Revisado: 04-23-08

Scheuer makes some very interesting points throughout this book, and one cannot help but take them into consideration. I respect his conclusions about how to deal with international terrorism. Unfortunately, I also feel that his lionization of Reagan and obvious disdain for Clinton make his conclusions harder to evaluate fairly. Often this book comes across as overly simplistic in its political analysis. That analysis being: Republicans good, and even when they are bad, they are still good, Democrats always bad and always worse than any Republicans.

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