Wordtrade.com| 1202 Raleigh Road 115| Chapel Hill NC 27517| USA SPOTLIGHT ph 9195425719| fx 9198691643| www.wordtrade.com 073 Wordtrade Reviews: Hiding Time Table of Contents HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE INVENTION OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE EROSION OF AMERICA by Sarah Kendzior [Flatiron Books, 9781250210715] THE END OF OCTOBER: A NOVEL by Lawrence Wright [Knopf, 9780525658658] BREAKING THROUGH SCHIZOPHRENIA: LACAN AND HEGEL FOR TALK THERAPY by Wilfried Ver Eecke [New Imago, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 9781538118009] KRISHNAMURTI IN AMERICA: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE by David Edmund Moody [David E Moody, 9781734227819] C. G. JUNG AND THE DEAD: VISIONS, ACTIVE IMAGINATION AND THE UNCONSCIOUS TERRAIN by Stephani L. Stephens [Routledge, 9780815366126] THE REALITY GAME: HOW THE NEXT WAVE OF TECHNOLOGY WILL BREAK THE TRUTH by Samuel Woolley [PublicAffairs, 9781541768253] THE COST OF LOYALTY: DISHONESTY, HUBRIS, AND FAILURE IN THE US. MILITARY by Tim Bakken [Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781632868985] THE RULE OF FIVE: MAKING CLIMATE HISTORY AT THE SUPREME COURT by Richard J. Lazarus [Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 9780674238121] THE POWER WORSHIPPERS: INSIDE THE DANGEROUS RISE OF RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM by Katherine Stewart [Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781635573435] BROKEN FAITH: INSIDE THE WORD OF FAITH FELLOWSHIP, ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS CULTS by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr [Hanover Square Press, 9781335145239] DANIEL JOHNSTON: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A POTTER IN NORTH CAROLINA by Henry Glassie, Photography and Drawings by the Author [Indiana University Press, 9780253048431] RECOLLECTIONS OF MY NONEXISTENCE: A MEMOIR by Rebecca Solnit [Viking, 9780593083338] SURREALISM, OCCULTISM AND POLITICS IN SEARCH OF THE MARVELLOUS edited by Tessei M. Bauduin, Victoria Ferentinou, and Daniel Zamani [Studies in Surrealism, Routledge, 9781138054332] THE DEATH OF SITTING BEAR: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by N. Scott Momaday [Harper, 9780062961150] 1 | page spotlight|©authors|or|wordtrade.com wordtrade.com| spotlight SPIRITUAL HOMELANDS: THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE OF EXILE, PLACE AND DISPLACEMENT AMONG JEWS AND OTHERS edited by Asher D. Biemann, Richard I. Cohen, and Sarah E. Wobick-Segev [Perspectives on Jewish Texts and Contexts, De Gruyter, 9783110637366] THE JEWISH GOD QUESTION: WHAT JEWISH THINKERS HAVE SAID ABOUT GOD, THE BOOK, THE PEOPLE, AND THE LAND by Andrew Pessin [Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 9781538110980] LEO STRAUSS AND THE THEOPOLITICS OF CULTURE by Philipp von Wussow [SUNY in the Thought and Legacy of Leo Strauss, SUNY, 9781438478395] TIME AND TRAUMA: THINKING THROUGH HEIDEGGER IN THE THIRTIES by Richard Polt [New Heidegger Research, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 9781786610492] Bibliography Editorial Appraisals: Some qualified reviewers offer their own brief evaluation of the book. Otherwise most of our content represents the authors’-editors’ own words as a preview to their approach to the subject, their style and point-of-view. <> 2 | Page spotlight|©authors|or|wordtrade.com wordtrade.com| spotlight HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE INVENTION OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE EROSION OF AMERICA by Sarah Kendzior [Flatiron Books, 9781250210715] Editorial Appraisal: When I read the Introduction to this this bestseller I cried with a sickening sense of sorrow, anger, and bone-deep sadness. The America I love is more seriously imperiled than I am by covid-19. Until I read this brief but empowering paeon to self-knowledge and freedom of conscience. Do not be bullied into apathy. Remember your own strength and ability to love what is right and true. New York Times bestselling author Sarah Kendzior documents the truth about the calculated rise to power of Donald Trump since the 1980s and how the erosion of our liberties made an American dema- gogue possible. The story of Donald Trump’s rise to power is the story of a buried American history – buried because people in power liked it that way. It was visible without being seen, influential without being named, ubiquitous without being overt. Sarah Kendzior’s HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT pulls back the veil on a history spanning decades, a history of an American autocrat in the making. In doing so, she reveals the inherent fragility of American democracy – how our continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States have been hiding in plain sight for decades. In Kendzior’s signature and celebrated style, she expertly outlines Trump’s meteoric rise from the 1980s until today, interlinking key moments of his life with the degradation of the American political system and the continual erosion of our civil liberties by foreign powers. Kendzior also offers a never-before-seen look at her lifelong tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – living in New York through 9/11 and in St. Louis during the Ferguson uprising, and researching media and authoritarianism when Trump emerged using the same tactics as the post-Soviet dictatorships she had long studied. It is a terrible feeling to sense a threat coming, but it is worse when we let apathy, doubt, and fear prevent us from preparing ourselves. HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT confronts the injustice we have too long ignored because the truth is the only way forward. 3 | Page spotlight|©authors|or|wordtrade.com wordtrade.com| spotlight Excerpt from Introduction: …I have been studying authoritarian states for over a decade, and I would never exaggerate the severity of this threat. Others who study or have lived in authoritarian states have come to the same conclusion as me. And the plight is beyond party politics: it is not a matter of having a president-elect whom many dislike but having a president-elect whose explicit goal is to destroy the nation. I am writing this not for those who oppose him, but for those who support him, because Trump and his backers are going to hurt you too ... You can look to the president-elect himself for a vision of what is to come. He has told you his plans all along, though most chose to downplay or deny them. You can even look back to before his candidacy, when in February 2014, he went on Fox News to defend Russia. Why a reality TV host was on Fox News defending Russia is its own story, but here is what he said about his desired outcome for the United States: "You know what solves it? When the economy crashes, when the country goes to total hell and everything is a disaster. Then you'll have a [chuckles], you know, you'll have riots to go back to where we used to be when we were great." This is what "Make America Great Again" means to Donald Trump. It is how he has operated his businesses, taking advantage of economic disasters like the housing market crash for personal gain. It is why, during a long and painful recession, he made "You're fired" a national catchphrase, because he understands that sometimes it feels good to know that the person getting fired, for once, is not you. He said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and people would still vote for him, and he said he could grab women "by the pussy" because "When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." He is right about that last part. No one holds Trump accountable, because he is exactly what he claimed to be railing against: an elite billionaire with no concern for the average person, a kleptocrat who enjoys taunting people less powerful than him with threats. When you have that kind of money, which Trump was given at birth and further gained through fraud, there are few limitations to the ways you can hurt people. He is right that the system is rigged: it is rigged in his favor. And now it is rigged against you, unless we find a way to stop it ... I will rearrange my life so I can fight this fight, because I am fighting for my country, and I never give up on my country or on my countrymen. But I need you to fight too, in the way that matters most, which is inside. Authoritarianism is not merely a matter of state control, it is something that eats away at who you are. It makes you afraid, and fear can make you cruel. It compels you to conform and to comply and accept things that you would never accept, to do things you never thought you would do. You do it because everyone else is doing it, because the institutions you trust are doing it and telling you to do it, because you are afraid of what will happen if you do not do it, and because the voice in your head crying out that something is wrong grows fainter and fainter until it dies. That voice is your conscience, your morals, your individuality. No one can take that from you unless you let them. They can take everything from you in material terms—your house, your job, your ability to speak and move freely. They cannot take away who you truly are. They can never truly know you, and that is your power. 4 | Page spotlight|©authors|or|wordtrade.com wordtrade.com| spotlight But to protect and wield this power, you need to know yourself—right now, before their methods permeate, before you accept the obscene and unthinkable as normal. My heart breaks for the United States of America. It breaks for those who think they are my enemies as much as it does for my friends. You still have your freedom, so use it. There are many groups organizing for both resistance and subsistence, but we are heading into dark times, and you need to be your own light. Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned.