"An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued." —The New York Times

Essential reading in my opinion. Although I agree with other reviewers that if you don't agree with Ackerman's starting point you won't get much out of this. Ackerman shows how in the wake of 9/11 the "Security State" took advantage of a very natural desire to rally around the flag, to break down the norms of civilised behaviour and democratic norms and to create a new concept of American individualism; less of the "shining light on the hill" but more of an authoritarian overlord. Ackerman gives us a useful reminder of the myriad failures of President Bush (II), the horrors of Gitmo, the complete breakdown of anything approaching "process" for anyone caught up in "rendition", how the Obama Presidency failed miserably in addressing any of this and how this perversion of the concept of American exceptionalism led to the complete abandonment of truth, decency and even shame in American politics - and thus Trump and his mini-me's.
As I say, I think its an exceptional piece of writing, albeit something of a polemic ( )

Spencer Ackerman begins "Reign of Terror" with a thesis: American exceptionalism -- the idea that the United States makes rules that it is not subject to -- is responsible for the catastrophic decisions that the United States made in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Ackerman then spends the rest of the book trying -- perhaps successfully and perhaps not -- to prove this thesis. As far as his idea goes, I've heard worse, but this doesn't make for particularly good reading. That's not just because it's difficult to imagine what the United States would be like without having American exceptionalism as part of its conceptual foundations and, really, its collective identity. American exceptionalism isn't an argument that Americans believe in as much as it's a feeling the have about their country. Its roots run deep, so it's not the sort of thing Americans can just change their mind about. This, I think, limits the usefulness of Ackerman's combative, intellectual approach to this issue. His is a front-loaded, top-down approach that, while it lets him connect events that happened after September 11, 2001, doesn't really let his text breathe. "Reign of Terror" isn't so much an argument as a polemic, Ackerman's writing isn't so much efficient as mercilessly spare, and you're not likely to get all that much out of it if you don't agree with its author's starting point.

"Reign of Terror" makes some good points. It demonstrates how limited and, in the end, inconsequential Barack Obama's efforts to rein in the tangle of intelligence agencies that Ackerman refers to as the "Security State" really were. He illustrates the dangers of conflating a violent movement's perpetrators with its victims, something that Americans have done repeatedly during the past twenty-five or so years. He effectively demonstrates the sheer breadth of surveillance operation that the United States has implemented to monitor its own citizens. At its best, it recounts how generalizations about terrorism that once only affected immigrants and Muslims living in foreign countries slowly became excuses to surveil -- and limit the rights of -- American citizens. But Ackerman's style of argument is so urgent and ferocious I sort of wish he had framed this book as an investigative reporter would have. It doesn't help that while Ackerman briefly mentions counterinsurgency strategies as a potential alternative to the War on Terror, he presents precious few alternatives to what happened. There aren't so many off-ramps here, and Ackerman spends a lot of time enumerating the mistakes the United States made and very little time describing how we could have effectively confronted the very real dangers of the early 21st century without making them. There might be some political science or international relations major out there who'll get a great deal out of "Reign of Terror" but it seems that it just wasn't the book I was looking or an account I could connect with. ( )

guys the 9/11 20th anniversary discourse is going to be so bad ( )