Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power
by Michael Kranish and Marc FisherPublished by Simon & Schuster (£20)(Buy at Amazon)
Polls suggest Donald Trump ismore likely to end up a footnote inAmerican political history than in the White House, but there is still a ready market for books about the real-estate tycoon turned reality-show host turned Republican presidential candidate.In Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power, Washington Post journalists Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher look at Trump's life and career, from his childhood up to the present day.
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"Any voter who is not already devoted to Trump's cause will find plenty of reasons to think long and hard about whether to support him after reading this book," says USA Today's Ray Locker. It is "crammed with court records, financial data, anecdotes and interviews about Trump's unscrupulous business practices, his liberal use of truthful hyperbole' and false promises to make himself rich, usually at the expense of others". Overall, this "compelling narrative", compiled from "the work of dozens of Post journalists", ends up delivering "enough devastating details to disqualify virtually any other candidate".
The "lurid detail" of Trump Revealed shows him to be a "showman, womaniser, and a business partner who quickly ditches failing schemes", agrees Dan Roberts inThe Guardian. However, the most interesting aspect of the book is "Trump's parasitic, and at turns downright bizarre, relationship with the press", including a mixture of threats, inducements to individual journalists and cases where Trump leaked information about his first divorce under a false name. His attitude to the media reflects a man obsessed with shaping his own public image. "For decades, Trump's daily morning routine included a review of everything written... about him in the previous 24 hours."
Trump Revealed confirms that Trump is "unconcerned by ethics", with his supposed "success" mostly the resultof "constant lying and exaggerationand occasional egregious bullying of journalists and analysts", says David Aaronovitch, writing in The Times. Still, it's disappointing that this "skilful and meticulous stitch-together of what has already been put on the record" fails to find a smoking gun. At the end of the day it confirms that Trump "has had no one rubbed out, participated in no wild sex parties and committed no obvious act of gross illegality". Ultimately, one emerges with a picture of a man who "is not unintelligent and possesses an instinct for what people enjoy".
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