Peril
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4.7 • 9 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
THE NEW YORK TIMES NO 1 BESTSELLER
The storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021 revealed the transition from President Trump to President Biden to be one of the most dangerous periods in American history, with the result of the election called into question by the sitting president.
But, as internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa reveal for the first time, it was far more than just a domestic political crisis. At the highest level of the US military, secret action was taken to prevent Trump from possibly starting a war.
Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the centre of the turmoil, resulting in a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink. They take readers deep inside the Trump White House, the Biden White House, the 2020 campaign, and the Pentagon and Congress, with vivid, eyewitness accounts of what really happened. Peril is supplemented throughout with never-before-seen material from secret orders, transcripts of confidential calls, diaries, emails, meeting notes and other personal and government records, making for an unparalleled history.
It is also the first inside look at Biden’s presidency, revealing the background to his controversial decision to leave Afghanistan. He took office faced with the challenges of a lifetime: dealing with the continuing deadly pandemic and its crushing economic impact, all the while navigating a bitter and disabling partisan divide, and the hovering, dark shadow of the former president. ‘We have much to do in this winter of peril,’ Biden declared at his inauguration.
Peril is the extraordinary story of the end of one presidency and the beginning of another. The culmination of Bob Woodward’s bestselling trilogy on the Trump presidency, along with Fear and Rage, it is an essential read for anyone wanting to understand this tumultuous period.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his third book about the Trump presidency (following Fear and Rage), Woodward joins forces with his Washington Post colleague Costa to offer a harrowing if familiar chronicle of the lead-up to and fallout from the 2020 election. The authors open with the dramatic revelation that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, twice reassured his Chinese counterparts that President Trump wouldn't launch a surprise attack to improve his chances of staying in office, and that if Trump tried to do so, the Chinese would be warned. According to the authors, Milley also limited Trump's ability to launch nuclear weapons. Drawing on anonymous interviews with "more than 200 firsthand participants and witnesses," Woodward and Costa also document how Trump's remarks about the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville motivated Biden to run for president, and offer fly-on-the-wall accounts of Republican in-fighting over claims that the election was rigged, Vice President Mike Pence's waffling over whether he should overturn the electoral results, and negotiations over President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Unfortunately, none of these reveals match the drama of those pertaining to Milley, and readers hoping for new insights into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol will be disappointed. This well-sourced recap feels more rote than revelatory.
