Member Reviews
This is a thoroughly engaging and forceful read, if you know of her politics or previous works you will not be shocked by the contents or her political position. What I appreciated about this book was that as well as a tale of woe about how the World got into the political and environmental situation it's now in - there is also a sense of how to get out again - and this positive and hopeful aspect really made it something special.
Really enjoyed all the things I’ve learnt from this book but found it pretty depressing considering current circumstances. I didn’t find the format flowed particularly well but glad I read it.
Im not American, so am I allowed to have an opinion on Trump? I think so.
Although I cannot join Naomi Klein in boycotting Trump products I can and do recognise that there is a real problem with the attitudes and actions of this presidency. From advocating treating women as sexual objects, to blatant lies about numbers at the inauguration, the immature narcissism at the heart of US politics is terrifying. The author got this book out quickly, but it is significant and considered, born of many years contemplation, the natural successor to her 2000 book 'No Logo". Trump is the ultimate example of style over substance, of branding as a source of significance and marketing being more important than truth.
The response to terrorist events, where the government claims sweeping new powers following a destabilising event is familiar in the UK too.
We need to oppose this and Naomi Klein's call to arms in the Leap Manifesto (at the end of the book) provides shape and focus on what to do next.
A very political book, I didn't find it as interesting as some others I have read. But if you are curious as to how someone like Donald Trump, a rank outsider to the political game, can get elected, you may find No Is Not Enough helps explain how it happened, but also how it is still possible for America to turn itself around. Ms Klein doesn't provide all the answers, nor do I agree with some of her views, but it is well researched and presented.
Sorry but this book was not my cup of tea - perhaps my non-US nationality has something to do with this.
I am not familiar with the author, but understand that she usually produces books based on lengthy research. Given that Donald Trump has not been President of the USA for all that long, I assume that this book is an exception. I didn't like the writing style, finding the tone both preaching and a tad pugnacious.
Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC in return for my honest review.
Rubbish. An elongated editorial full of surface level critiques on politics. She doesn't like Trump, I get it. And what was all that rubbish about climate change? Unfocused, shallow, pointless - I gave up a third of the way through when she began ranting about how we need more identity politics. Waste of time.
There are some good insights in this book: I liked the points about Trump being essentially a "branding" mission. However, ultimately the author is restating (at excessive length) how mankind has exploited resources and fellow man since the dawn of time - and that is not likely to end anytime soon. By talking about 'Indigenous people' and campaigns such as 'Black Lives Matter', we are persuaded that these are contemporary issues. In reality of course, slavery and exploitation have been with us for all-time. All Lives Matter - but that cuts both ways. Read it - but prepare to be challenged, maybe grudgingly supportive, and eventually bored.
A must read for anyone and everyone wondering how we arrived at today's world of climate change and world leaders who seemingly do not represent the majority of voters. This book is a clear explanation of how the likes of Donald Trump and his entourage have come to power and what his legacy might be. Despite being written in a very short time span, Naomi Klein writes with a deep knowledge from years of research into the way society produces its politicians and government style. It made for grim reading. The final chapter offers some pointers to an alternative way forward but it is up to all of us to take an interest.
Not being a great reader of non fiction, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to read this timely book. Klein gives a well researched background into the present globally troubling times and even manages to offer a glimmer of hope.
I would imagine that there will be a lot of books published over the next few months regarding the rise of Trump. However, it's difficult to imagine a book that will be better than this in terms of reviewing the reasons for his presidential victory (and as Klein says, the rise of brand Trump), looking at how events are likely to evolve over the next few years and also about how we can challenge the policies that are coming out of this administration.
In addition to the last section of the book which essentially looks at how to make the world a better place, Klein's strengths are in linking the events in America to events around the world and also her focus on environmental issues. These make the book relevant to everyone, not just those in the USA. The only downside to the book is that it refers to current events so much that much of it will feel dated very quickly. But I hope that people will refer back to The Leap Manifesto for many years to come.
This is an fascinating book if you are interested in how Trump was able to become (and stay, at least until now) President of the USA.
Klein points out how shock of any sort from terrorism to natural disaster and more, becomes the perfect opportunities for politicians to march ahead with 'shock' policies that benefit them far more than the people. Healthcare and the environment get left behind when there's money to be made from oil.
She examines how this has come to pass and what we can do to challenge it.
As a reader outside of North America (she writes a lot about Canada and the US), I did at times get a little bored of the pages upon pages about why Bernie Sanders was a better Democrat candidate than Hilary Clinton, and could've saved the world, but I suppose I forgave her for the wider meaning and purpose of the book. It did take me quite a long time to read, though.
It's about the power of hate, and how we must overcome the fear of the other to work together.
I'm not sure what lies around the corner for any of us, but I feel I understand a bit more about how we got here now.
Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, has come up with this response to the current political situation – to the election of Trump and the rise of the far right across the West. She analyses how Trump came to power, looking at the political ideologies and the devaluation of human life and the climate that put him there.
This is a fascinating, informative and inspiring read, which despite bringing home the seriousness of the situation we find ourselves in – with us being on a precipice in regards to climate change among other things – manages to offer hope for the future if we are committed to change. A must-read.
A refreshing and captivating read not just in light of Trump's rise to power, but more generally as we look to the future of our planet. Klein articulately explores the factors that brought Trump to the White House and considers what we need to do as a society to fight against hatred, neoliberalism, climate change and more. The culmination of the book in her Leap Manifesto offers a drastic and compelling alternative to the existing system. It's not enough to criticise the current situation, we have to take active steps to demand a change. A must read for anyone looking for some hope within the darkness.
A howl of articulate despair at the role that has elected Trump, Klein lays out how we let it happen and where to go from here.
Having not read Naomi Klein since No Logo I cam to this expecting a lot. It delivered. Her latest book pulls apart the reasons behind Trump and lays bare the fact that we are all to blame. It mentions other countries that have similar issues, particularly her native Canada and our very own United Kingdom. It also tries to come up with solutions, although these seem to be the weakest part of the book in comparison to the rest.
This book is enlightening, heart warming and sensible at its heart. In dark times its always useful to hear voices of reason and this book gives voice to one that has been fighting the good fight for a long time. It should be read as widely as possible
This is a polemic for our time.
Naomi Klein makes a compelling argument that the Trump presidency is a direct result of his making himself into a brand rather than a politician. People voted for the brand. After setting out the arguments as to why this is true, Klein also helpfully provides a type of handbook for people who want to resist the Trump brand.
The book is well done, although it does seemed rushed in places (probably to get it in print as quickly as possible after the election).
It is a polemic for our time, but it is also thoroughly depressing, which reflects the world we live in at the moment, unfortunately.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers who gave me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Klein’s intelligence and sharpness of vision don’t waver throughout this book. I was completely sucked into it. Everything she writes makes such deep and everlasting sense, including the urgency with which this book has made its way into the world. She writes with great clarity and, despite a desperate subject matter, the reader comes away with glimmers of hope sparking.
The book calls us to attention. Klein is concerned that we do not look away and allow ourselves to be distracted. She begins the book with an extremely interesting description of Trump (and the USA and the path/vision the world appears to be taking) before he came to power. She points out that before Trump we already lived in a world that treated people and the planet like garbage so we need to root out how we got here (quickly) and get on with the change. Our leaders have been profiting from war, climate change and natural disasters for a long time and we need to be aware of that, we also need to know that the worse is yet to come.
Klein delves into material she has written in the past (‘No Logo’ and ‘Shock Economy’ both books which unfortunately predict the future we find ourselves in) and projects her ideas onto the present. She discusses the new phenomenon of human megabrands and just why the Trumps seem to be immune to scandal. Comprehending the immigration problem today from Klein’s point of view was also extremely revealing.
However, this is not just a book of scary foreboding (it is not that at all). Klein is not simply angry (this is not tone of the book); her book is powered by the urgency of climate change (Klein whipped this book together in a matter of a few months). She warns us that Trump and his administration represent a great danger to our climate because their motivations are driven by greed and self grandeur and it is this that poses the worst threat to us (and the consequences of climate change; war and immigration).
Klein ends this book talking about the Leap Manifesto that she collaborated in putting together in Canada. These are admirable rules and regulations by which we should all try to live by; it is a call for change and revolutionising the way we live in order to respect humanity and the planet.
I appreciated the fact that this is not only a book about politics and the twist and turns in the path that nationalism and greed have taken us. This is a book that provides us with very realistic and grounded solutions that make the reader soar with hope and sparks us into action.
I found No is not enough frustrating at times, but it is worth persisting with. Naomi Klein’s best work occurs when she creates an argument illustrated with fresh, compelling evidence. No Logo, for example, which was right about the emerging gig economy even if it drew the wrong conclusions about whether brands could be called to account, contains vivid stories which I remember a decade and a half later. This book may or may not have the same sticking power, but it is nothing if not ambitious.
Klein begins No is not enough by applying the analytical framework she has developed in her previous books to Donald Trump’s development of his brand. There is some useful insight: for example Klein notes that Trump’s TV experience enabled him to differentiate between being the best ‘contestant’ for the presidency rather than the best ‘candidate’. Similarly (although this is not a new thought) Trump understands the need to provide fresh spectacle (on wrestling entertainment principles), knowing that policy specifics are no longer adequately examined by the popular media.
Part of Klein’s central argument is that, monstrous though Trump and his senior team may be, it is not enough to want to return to the Obama years as thought they were some kind of golden age, especially with regards to the environment. She describes the horrific deterioration of the Great Barrier Reef. Things need to be better than Obama gave us, and better than Hillary Clinton promised, she says. Klein is, shall we say, unenthusiastic about the Democratic 2016 nominee for the presidency, and backs up her unenthusiasm and this is a reasonable position to take. But although Klein argues that to have voted for Trump takes the voter into a dubious moral area, she does (later) argue that Bernie Sanders would have been a more electable candidate and she hurls the ‘neoliberal’ tag at the parts of the Democratic party that didn’t back Bernie. I find that this veers a bit towards a Boris Johnson-like cake-and-eat-it position, even if Klein – unlike many of the new left – does take care to spell out a working definition of neoliberalism.
So about half way through the book, I’m finding myself angered about Trump (and let’s face it, to be angered about Trump is a daily occurrence even if Klein provides material that is new to me) and also irritated about an ideological purity that sees the centre and left of centre as too decadent to be part of a solution. It’s the promise of the blueprint of change that keeps me going at that point.
The section on shock tactics by anti-democratic forces provides useful detail on the role of Mike Pence among conservative thought leaders, and reminds us that for all Trump’s unfitness for office, his preening inadequacies probably shield the world from an equally ideological, but potentially competent administration.
And I find Klein especially strong and compelling when she warns that the notion of a shared humanity, with everyone regarded of equal status, with equal rights and deserving of equal dignity, is under threat from a ‘dominance-based logic that treats so many people…as disposable.’
But it begins to look as though Klein is proposing protest, resistance and solidarity as the answer, as though these are new and of themselves sufficient. She is right to suggest that renewal comes from outside the party system (that works both ways: remember the Tea Party and the alt-right) – but doesn’t deal with the messy stakeholder jostling which inevitably arises. The atmosphere within the ‘Leap’ movement sounds ideal and but also idealistic and unrealistic. Who is to judge whose needs take precedence, or who is more legitimate or representative of the ‘real’ citizen? We’re just a few small steps from Matthew d’Ancona and the ‘marketplace of ideas’. Klein herself makes statements about who might be the ‘right’ owner of energy sources, citing ‘farmers’ as an example – a class that ranges from the smallholder to Big Agriculture.
The ideas put forward in the Leap are very interesting, especially the proposal to redefine what is meant by a ‘green job’ and the rejection of blind nostalgia is very appealing in Brexit Britain; but some of the specific proposals seem small, especially when compared against Klein’s own, inspiring call to think creatively about a new vision. And as those proposals are adopted by parties and integrated into a policy framework it’s possible that some of the shine will be tarnished by compromise.
This book is at its best when it is analysing what has gone wrong and kicks us to get off the mat. It is weaker on realistic answers and that’s fair enough because they need to come from all of us. No is not enough is not enough. But it’s a start.
Thanks to Penguin Books for the review copy.
Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.
My rating: 4 out of 5
I should be the ideal audience for Naomi Klein's "No is Not Enough" - I'm very much a liberal, very much opposed to all the things Trump, and a strong believer in the positives of immigration. However, I did struggle with this book, and in the end found myself skimming pages towards the end.
Naomi Klein is incredibly articulate and very informed on all these topics, the book is clearly well researched. My problem is that it reads like a tedious activist's manifesto. Her arguments, and I apologise for this, can be broken down to: unions good, business bad.
She bemoans Trump for negotiating a killer deal on a NYC hotel that he bought in the 70s, depriving NYC of $350 million dollars of future taxes, but doesn't criticise those who made the sale. Trump is a business man, of course he wants the best deal he can, the problem here is not him, but the muppets who sold him the property on such a bad deal for the city and the state.
Likewise, I disagree with her support of Anticorporate street demonstrations, the ones to be expected now at all G8/G20/etc meetings. She writes about how the protesters receive unfair bad press, while acknowledging “yes, there had been battles with the police and broken store windows”, but there’s no criticism of this violent behaviour, of masked protesters vandalising property and terrifying residents, just disapproval that the press are hostile to the cause.
Similarly, she claims that the IMF’s goal was the "abject humiliation" of Greece in return for bailouts. This wasn't the case, Greece was heavily over spending on public services while not collecting income through taxes and needed to reform. As an example, public servants could retire at 50; the IMF's requests were only to put the country inline with other EU members. Without those reforms, Greece would be continually asking for further EU/IMF bailouts, which would be unfair on the other European tax payers who didn't have such great terms themselves.
And finally, all good books should include all the information to paint a true picture, not just the facts that suit the author's argument. This was done extremely well by Matthew D’Ancona’s in his recent Post-Truth. Naomi, as I said before, reads like an activist, strong-arming all her opinions as the only truth. While I deplore Trump, I can understand that he gained voters turned off by some of the liberal agenda - if you're about to lose your job and your house, you don't care what symbols are used on toilet doors, you don't care about reparations for slavery that happened 300 years before you were born, you just want to see fixes for your problems, steps to improve your life. The argument in this book is that if you voted for Trump, you can't see how the dots are connected like us smart liberals can, you can't see that you're being taken for a ride, like us smart liberals can.
I never write reviews this long, but this book frustrated me so much in that it missed such a wonderful opportunity. But all people who voted for Trump don't walk around with their knuckles dragging on the floor, the average salary for a Trump voter was £60k (quoted on a recent Intelligence Squared podcast). And I do feel that this liberal we're-smarter-than-you mantra does more harm than good, you don't win an argument by telling the other side that they're stupid. That's one of the reasons why the UK voted to leave the EU.
Still, disagreeing with an author's view is healthy, especially an author who I respect so much. So, 4 out of 5, a well-researched read, with some interesting points made.
Insightful as always, Naomi Klein’s reaction to Trump’s presidency is both thought-provoking and provocative. Written in just months after the election it’s a powerful call-to-arms and a synthesis of much of her earlier work, in particular The Shock Doctrine, where she analysed the use of crises to further political agendas. In No Is Not Enough she brings together all her previous targets (brands, corporate hegemony, climate change and so on) and warns the reader that we should be aware of and vigilant about the shock tactics employed by Trump in which he exploits crises in order to impose his policies. She points out that Trump’s victory shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone as it was the logical conclusion to America’s love affair with celebrity and wealth. But just saying no is not enough, merely resisting is not enough. The opposition needs a viable agenda to fight back and in the latter part of the book she expounds her vision of what a united opposition with clear and achievable policies could do for our world. I found this an absorbing and convincing book and even took away from it a shred of hope for the future. Maybe all is not completely lost. A must-read for anyone who cares about the mess we seem to be in and who wants to do something about it.