A New York Times Critics Top Book of 2021 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 One of the most illuminating books to come out of the Trump era. New
York MagazineAn examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had in pushing
American politics and society in an authoritarian direction For an entire generation at home
and abroad the United States has waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In
addition to multiple ground wars the era pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital
surveillance weakened the rule of law through indefinite detentions sanctioned torture and
manipulated the truth about it all. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory but
they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has
become a normalized feature of American politics and national security expanding the
possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home as the
summer of 2020 showed. A politically divided and economically destabilized country turned the
War on Terror into a cultural and then a tribal struggle. It began on the ideological frontiers
of the Republican Party before expanding to conquer the GOP often with the acquiescence of the
Democratic Party. Today s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9 11 era. And
that door remains open. Reign of Terror shows how these developments created an opportunity for
American authoritarianism and gave rise to Donald Trump. It shows that Barack Obama squandered
an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. By the end of his
tenure the war had metastasized into a bitter broader cultural struggle in search of a
demagogue like Trump to lead it. Reign of Terror is a pathbreaking and definitive union of
journalism and intellectual history with the power to transform how America understands its
national security policies and their catastrophic impact on civic life.
