Reader Score
79%
79% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 5 reviews on
This is the authoritative, "deeply reported" (The Wall Street Journal) account of an eighteen-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country's political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden's first year in the White House.
From Donald Trump's assault on the 2020 election and his ongoing campaign of vengeance against his fellow Republicans to the behind-the-scenes story of Biden's selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate and his bitter struggles to unite the Democratic Party, this book exposes the degree to which the two-party system has been strained to the point of disintegration. More than at any time in recent history, the long-established traditions and institutions of American politics are under siege as a set of aging political leaders struggle to hold together the changing country.
Martin and Burns break news on most every page, drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before-seen documents and recordings from the highest levels of government. This "masterful" (George Stephanopoulos) book asks the vitally important (and disturbing) question: can American democracy, as we know it, ever work again?
I reviewed @jmartNYT and @alexburnsNYT's new book This Will Not Pass for @NYMag. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/this-will-not-pass-shows-how-trump-was-resurrected.html
Brian Stelter is a journalist.
"This Will Not Pass" is out today. Due to high demand, Simon & Schuster went back for a second printing before the book's publication... (http://cnn.it/3KEyX7L) https://t.co/E9nqhLcm1x
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President Biden confessed in private that he didn't understand Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who helped stymie his biggest legislative dreams, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns write in their new book, "This Will Not Pass." https://t.co/bU3MJ6gVPI
"A blockbuster. Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns deliver 473 pages of essential reading."
-- The Guardian
"The authors are tireless reporters, and the book's impact lies less in any headline revelations than in the accumulation of small details that can almost seem routine but that reveal the deeper condition of American democracy.... It's a document of decline and fall--a chronicle that should cause future readers to ponder how American leaders in the early 21st century lost the ability and will to govern."
-- George Packer, The Atlantic
"A deeply reported new book... paints an authoritative portrait of the Biden-Harris relationship-- or absence of one."-- The New York Times
"It [is with] this color and detail where Martin and Burns excel. They give the scenes and add the specificities of the moments ......when moral virtue and civic interest yield to pure opportunism. ......It is still uncertain how what the two authors describe as "an existential battle for the survival of the democratic system" will end. But whenever future historians chronicle the final result, they won't need to engage in any guesswork or speculation. They can simply open the pages of This Will Not Pass and discover who met the moment and who fell short."
-- New York Magazine
"What an account of these extraordinary times. Martin and Burns deliver reporting from deep inside both parties with fresh facts and new details on nearly every page about a political system pushed to the brink. When future historians chronicle this time of crisis they will turn to this book as a deeply valuable account of our all too human leaders."
-- Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
"This is an enthralling and at times frightening account that weaves together the Trump implosion and the roller coaster ride of Biden's first year. Deeply reported, it combines amazing inside scoops with a fine feel for the historic forces that have roiled our times. By helping us understand what happened, it provides insight about where we are heading."
-- Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker
"Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin are two of our best sourced, most insightful and honest chroniclers of American politics. Their book takes us not only through those harrowing final days of the Trump-era but is the first to deeply explore the central tension of President Biden's presidency thus far: that of a man who is trying to balance 'national reconciliation' with his 'aspiration to craft a presidency of grand and lasting impact.' The writing, full of luscious details and newsy nuggets, allows the reader an 'in the room where it happened' experience."
-- Amy Walter, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter
"An impressively sourced and consistently revealing chronicle of America's 'political emergency' in the months between the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the start of President Biden's second year in office...What emerges is a clear-eyed and often dramatic portrait of two major political parties animated as much by internal divisions as by cross-aisle discord....Revelations abound--of Kevin McCarthy's initial plan to call on Trump to resign after the Capitol riot; of Republican efforts to lure Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema into switching parties--as do sharp character sketches. Politics junkies should consider this required reading."
-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Red meat for politics watchers, unsparing in its depiction of a time of torment."
-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)