Summary and Reviews of State of Denial by Bob Woodward

Media Reviews

The Boston Globe - Chuck Leddy [B]rimming with vivid details about White House meetings, critical phone calls, intelligence reports, and military affairs ..... Woodward's impressively detailed and eye-opening revelations about the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath are meeting with some of the same "denials" referenced in the book's title. `"With all of Bush's upbeat talk and optimism," Woodward writes, "he had not told the American public the truth about what Iraq had become."

The Wall Street Journal - Peggy Noonan Serious, densely, even exhaustively reported, and a real contribution to history in that it gives history what it most requires, first-person testimony....This is a primer on how the executive branch of the United States works, or rather doesn't work, in the early years of the 21st century.

The Washington Post - Ted Widmer Woodward's new book, the third in his trilogy on George W. Bush, conveys a great deal of information, none of it good for the president and his team. It gives far more operational detail on Iraq than its predecessor, Plan of Attack. It also goes much further in asserting the author's distaste for the war and the administration's handling of it than anything Woodward has written previously. In fact, it is the angriest book Woodward has written since his first, All the President's Men. Like that masterpiece, State of Denial feels all the more outraged for its measured, nonpartisan tones and relentless reporting. It is nothing less than a watershed.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani As depicted by Mr. Woodward, this is an administration in which virtually no one will speak truth to power, an administration in which the traditional policy-making process involving methodical analysis and debate is routinely subverted.

The New York Times Book Review - Franklin Foer For the past decade, [Woodward] has received unending abuse .... His critics have turned him into a symbol of journalism's rot, a leading force in the sad demise of adversarial reporting ..... With 'State of Denial, you sense this (somewhat overwrought) critique has rattled Woodward. It has forced him to change his style. There's less of his signature omniscience here -- a style that not only reflected his proximity to power, but captured the self-confidence of the Washington Establishment. In its place, he has grown self-referential, nervously mentioning his past books, as well as inserting himself as a character into his own tale. That Bob Woodward has strayed from the Bob Woodward method tells you a lot about the state of American journalism.

The New York Observer - Rick Perlstein Considering that the subject and substance of Mr. Woodward’s three books overlap, doesn’t the revision indict the originals? If Part III is the better book because it’s a more accurate portrayal of the Bush administration’s abject failures and inadequacies, doesn’t that make the author look worse? What was he withholding? (The word “Bandar,” for instance, is absent from Bush at War.) What was the eureka moment? Why couldn’t Mr. Woodward have exploited his unique insider access to alert the Washington establishment sooner about the danger of harboring this feckless man-child in their midst?

The Sydney Morning Herald - Bruce Wolpe Is Bob Woodward about to bring down his second president of the United States? While George Bush is unlikely to be driven from office by State of Denial, there is every prospect that this enormously sober and painful exegesis of what happened after Bush launched the war in Iraq will help seal, as All The President's Men did for Richard Nixon, the public's judgement of his presidency.

Publishers Weekly Starred Review. If there ever was a crystalline indictment of a president's wartime decisions, this is it.

Reader Reviews

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