Rating: 
Summary: Writer's Deceit
Review: Beyond the blatant anti-Bush fanaticism, this book represents a true collection of pseudo-intellectual babble that is a sure cure for the worst case of insomnia.Fact is difficult to identify amid the litany of references to other author's opinions, rather than hard sources. All one can hope for is more than $1 at the used bookstore.
Rating:
Summary: American Dynasty - Writer's Tragedy
Review: To see Kevin Phillips resorting to using Vanity Fair as a primary source was just plain laughable. While the author looks for hidden conspiracies and plots against western civilization he loses the reader by not including any factual information (by his own admission in endless interrupting citations - his comments are speculative at best) or relevant source material. Sadly it would seem that Mr. Phillips is just another man with an axe to grind. While there are some interesting questions raised in the book - the arguments just don't add up and the endless polemics of Kevin Phillips are maddening. Save your time and your money - there's nothing here but empty accusations and hysteric declarations of a right wing conspriacy. For all the 'information' that's in this collection of words, you'd be better off listening to NPR or CNN on a regular basis.
Rating: 
Summary: Innuendo After Innuendo
Review: For whatever personal reasons, Phillips has savaged the Bushes - both GHWB and GWB, as well as their forebears and offspring - by building upon innuendo after innuendo, and weaving them into a largely unsubstantiated web of intrigue and deceit. It is as though playing cards were tilted on their ends, resting one against the next, and precariously poised so that a slight breeze might blow the whole lot down. To trash the Bushes page after page, Phillips has used the wily techniques of a skillful writer, apparently unaccustomed to any critics suggesting that the "[Emperor] hasn't got anything on." If the innuendoes and the qualifications and hedging are removed, Phillips' theses fall like a house of cards. Clearly, vendetta or payback was afoot as he crafted each page of this tome.
Rating:
Summary: Melange Plus Innuendo
Review: This book is a melange of facts, pseudo facts and plain errors tied together with words like "may be", "could be" and other techinques of innuendo. The citations are principally of secondary sources. The error rate is so high as to cast doubt on the whole book.
The book reminds me of the writings of Velikowsky who used similar techniques to develop revisionist scientific theories of the solar system as well of those authors who have described ,in great detail and with total conviction the visits of Saucerians, Venusians and other aliens to our planet. A hatchet job written in such a way as to owerpower the unwary with a torrent of words and phrases in a repetitive manner so as to bludgeon the reader into believing.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but really disorganized
Review: It appears that Phillips couldn't really decide if he wanted to write about history or politics. For this reason his story jumps around across the decades and between subject matter, attacking four generation of books for a wide variety of reasons. I bought the book because I am not a fan of either President Bush and there is plenty of red meat here for people like me, particularly in the chapter on the rise of the religious right. However, Phillips is just trying to do too much to be completely coherent. He offers side arguments off the top of his head without fully developing them and he really should have a lot more footnotes for what he covers. If you're looking for more reasons to hate the President, there are better researched and more satisfying titles out there right now.
Rating: 
Summary: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!
Review: The Bush family pretends to be God's gift to family values, patriotic values, honesty, decency and all the rest of the things that ought to make a great family. But they're not. Kevin Phillips is a conservative Republican who has been left behind by the movement within what has become the most powerful part of the GOP toward corruption, influence-peddling and just plain outright lying. (...) There are times that the Bush family legacy is so lurid that one is inclined to blame some of the stories on the likes of Lyndon Larouche. But the facts are difficult to deny -- and strangely enough we now know more than ever about the utter dishonesty and corruption of this president and his entire family. Phillips has written a first draft of the Bush history. There is little doubt that at some point in the future, a more detailed analysis of this dismal grouping of the gene pool will be exposed for what it is. What the Bushes do not resemble is the Adams family that also produced two presidents. While not perfect, the Adams actually had the interest of the United States at heart. The Bushes have the Bushes in mind and, such friends as they need to gain power. We know that who your family is and who you know is critical to getting elected...not always bad. But in this case, we went for the bottom of the barrel, first with Bush the elder - a bad president, but the stronger of the two Bush presidents -- and now with the blood thinned, his totally inadequate son. They have created a situation in which a fascist United States could come into being .. and that is a situation which Phillips deals with well.
Rating:
Summary: Josef Goebells lives on as Kevin Phillips!
Review: Let's get this straight. I am not a Bush fan, don't support his out of control spending and will probably not vote for him.
This being said I still believe in fairness and facts. This book is nothing more than a 3rd rate character assasination! Phillip's unfortunate "tour de farce" is loaded with inuendo and supposition but scarcely contains a fact. The author's sole restraint has been that he refrains from accusing the Bush family of being the cause of "original sin". (Maybe his next book...) Don't waste your time or money on this stinker!
Rating: 
Summary: Skeletons in the Bush family closet? Imagine that!
Review: American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips is a bit of a mess. The problem largely results from the fact that Phillips apparently never truly decided what the book was supposed to be: a examination of the Bush 'dynasty', a general historical review of dynastic political families in general or a political hatchet job. It tries to be all three and in fact fails at being any of these things, though there are interesting aspects to all three themes. It's a classic case of missed opportunity all the way around. The great strength of the book is the historical review of the bases of Bush family wealth and power and how that has translated into a political dynasty of sorts. Are there skeletons in this closet? Of course there are. (As there are in the Kennedy closet, the Roosevelt closet, and so on.) Have the Bushies leveraged their wealth to their economic and political advantage. Again, of course they have'as have others. If there is an issue there'and Phillips makes a strong case that there indeed is an issues here'it's that the Bush dynasty has arisen not for even the incidental goal of providing public service in general but almost entirely as a huge cronyism machine. Phillips tries to compare the Bush dynasty of other American dynasties without much success. The expected convergences are there and well documented. The aspects of historical accident and contrasting experience are ignored or glossed over. That's bad enough. To worsen the mix, Phillips tries to also do the comparison thing with European dynasties. This is really stretching the purview and the whole historical aspects of the exercise pretty much fall apart. So what give this book 4 stars? Because, insofar as the actual cataloging of the Bush history and experience go, the book is thorough, thoughtful and highly detailed. It's also a very depressing. So is this a merely hatchet job? A political gotcha? Probably not. Phillips is a heavy weight observer of American political history and events. Moreover, he's a very conservative fellow, though no longer a Republican by affiliation. (Apparently the more radical aspects of Republican pandering to the religious right finally got to him and he switched to being an independent.) In the end each reader has to decide if the Bushies are dedicated public servants or merely well healed hogs feeding at the public trough. On the whole, no matter how you look at it though, this book does not paint a very flattering picture and I'd like to think that is would give pause too all but the most ardent Republican partisans as to the nature of the Bush presidencies.
Rating:
Summary: More of a legacy than a dynasty.
Review: I don't know how devastating this book is. Phillips fails to pin anything directly on the Bushes, but rather compiles an impressive array of circumstantial evidence to point to a shady past that goes back four generations in the so-called "Bush Dynasty." The book has been well researched and will provide plenty of fodder in this election campaign. Phillips charts the numerous ties the Bush family has had with the military-industrial complex over the last 80 years, and its links to the various military intelligence services during this time, culminating in the CIA. This book raises a lot of doubt as to the supposed candor of father and son who, as Phillips has illustrated, have done a pretty good job of re-inventing themselves over the year. Phillips explored the Religious Right in depth, calling into question the sincerity of Dubya's convictions. Phillips seems to view Dubya's re-christening in the church as a calculated move to bring him closer to the Texas electorate, which is probably the most religiously conservative state in the country. Billy Graham, who is credited with showing Dubya the light, has a long history in the Republican Party dating back to Eisenhower. But, where this book suffers is in Phillips' attempt to make a case for a Bush Dynasty. While it is unprecedented to have a son follow so closely on the heels of his father into the White House (the Adamses were separated by 24 years, and a much changed American society), it hardly bespeaks a dynasty. But, Phillips continually presses this point, fearing that dynastic politics will be the ruin of our Republic.
Rating:
Summary: What's Bred in the Bone
Review: Kevin Phillips is a unique animal in American political writing. A talented former GOP strategist, his book "The Emerging Republican Majority" was a major text of the Nixon Era. But Phillips has confounded conservatives and delighted liberals over the last decade by turning his focus to the determining role of economic class in our political process. With "The Politics of Rich and Poor" (1990) he broke with Reaganomics; in "Wealth and Democracy" (2002) he looked at the power of accumulated wealth throughout American history. In these and other books, Phillips amassed prodigious amounts of data to support each step in his argument. It didn't hurt that Phillips was always referred to as a "former Republican strategist"--it gave him added credibility that wouldn't extend to, say, a liberal economics professor. Still, the arrival of "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush" is a bit of a shock, starting with the belligerent subtitle. Phillips isn't just observing the power of wealth in action; he is angry about it. And it's personal, too. There's something about the Bush clan that clearly drives Phillips crazy. It's not just the dynastic ambitions, the shady business deals, the nasty stew of armaments, espionage and oil. It's the disconnect between the mediocre and diminishing talents of each succeeding generation of Bush men compared to their opportunities. It's the same resentment of the middle-class, self-made man against the snooty establishment that used to supply a large portion of Richard Nixon's demons. Having worked for Nixon, Phillips remembers a Republican Party whose interests were not co-terminous with the wealthiest segment of society. To him, the Bushes are emblems of everything that's gone wrong with the GOP since then. So this is a book for Bush haters, primarily, and perhaps the more conspiratorially minded among the undecided. But Phillips has a different take on our 43rd president than most. Where many other observers see a sharp break between Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. (internationalist-->unilateralist, cosmopolitan-->provincial, pragmatist-->ideologue, high church-->born again), Phillips sees continuity. To Phillips, each Bush generation follows an eerily similar path: prep school, Yale, Skull & Bones, a mediocre business career and then an entry into politics, greased with connections. No doctors or lawyers here, no professional achievements outside this pattern, Phillips points out on several occasions. For many of us, the travesty is not that wealthy political families like the Bushes, Kennedys and Rockefellers exist. (They are like well-known brands of consumer products). It's that the Republicans chose to elevate an undistinguished, inexperienced, and immature member of such a family to leadership. Phillips' book does a lot to explain how it could happen--and it's not a pretty story. Let's just say that the power structures and connections that sustain a dynasty are not very attentive to signs of degeneracy. As usual, Phillips amasses a huge amount of research. Some of the material--especially on the earlier Bush generations--is new. He is usually judicious in its use, but there are times when he passes on a rumor, noting that while it sounds far-fetched, it has never been comprehensively disproven. That's a rather low standard. Whether the subject is Prescott Bush's alleged dealings with Nazi Germany or his descendants' connections to the Saudis, too often Phillips is content with billowing clouds of smoke, when what we're really looking for is fire. Beyond the Bushes, Phillips' concern about the dynastic trend in American politics and the overbearing power of accumulated wealth is well-founded. He's a bit intoxicated with distant analogies to 17th and 18th century British and French politics. And the historian clearly gets the better of the political strategist when he faults Al Gore for failing to point out that the Republicans had stolen an election in Florida before--in 1876! Nevertheless, the historical dimension Phillips brings to the debate is still the strongest aspect of the book, and its sharpest distinction from other contestants in the anti-Bush bestseller derby.
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