I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

I found this frustrating to read. I genuinely despise American politics and government as it is not for the people by the people as advertised. Instead we have 2 parties fighting it out and NEITHER have the peoples’ best interests at heart. Reading up on how the Republican Party has become what it is now is interesting (though I’d argue that the gop has gone further downhill since the writing of this book).

As a life long Democrat I have always been confused by the Republican party. But these last few years have really been confusing. I am a firm believer that in order to understand the now we need to look at the past. That is exactly what this book offers. Very informative and helpful.

An interesting in-depth look at Newt Gingrich and his political career. I am old enough to remember the name but didn't really know much about him.

Americans are familiar with the warring red and blue teams of the modern political era. But where did this cycle of mutually assured destruction begin? Historian Julian Zelizer points to the rise of Newt Gingrich within the ranks of the Republican caucus and his ultimate take down of Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright as the moment when things took an irrevocable turn towards conflict in his book Burning Down the House.

Gingrich may be best known for his stint as the Republican speaker of the House in the mid-1990s, but Zelizer's book ends just as Newt is rising to that post. Instead, with Gingrich as the main character and Wright as his white whale, Zelizer tells the tale of an ambitious politician willing to do anything to topple a permanent Democratic majority in the House. Far from a comprehensive biography, Gingrich's life up to his arrival in Congress is detailed, but the majority of the focus is on his ascent in the 1980s as the Republicans tired of sitting in the minority in the House of Representatives since the 1950s.

Zelizer paints Gingrich as a savvy, if sinister, force that recognized and exploited a changing public and media landscape far ahead of many of his contemporaries. Gingrich was among the first politicians to take advantage of speaking to a national TV audience on CSPAN, often obscuring the fact that he was speaking to an empty chamber. Gingrich used his speaking time to denounce abuses (real or imagined) by the Democratic majority. Gingrich slowly but surely convinced his Republican colleagues that fighting- not complacency- was the key to escaping minority status.

Gingrich went big game hunting and set his sights on Speaker of the House Jim Wright. An old-school pol from Texas, Wright was well versed in the horse trading and palm greasing of the era. When he found himself embroiled in what may have been a minor to mid-level scandal in the past, he was unable to escape the effects of Gingrich salting the Earth around Congress. Perhaps noble, perhaps naive, Wright resigned from Congress in an attempt to save it, while at the same time Gingrich was attempting to burn the institution down to save it.

The book paints a compelling picture of the political scene of the 1980s, with frequent appearances from congressional players from that time. Historians of the 1980s and of Congress are sure to enjoy.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

With an upcoming contentious election, I was excited to read this book to give me perspective and knowledge on topics that I don't know much about. I thought this book helped explain how we have reached such a divide in our politics today.

I was nervous that this sort of in-depth topic would be a bore and hard to reach. But, it was actually quite the opposite. I thought the book was very readable and was a page-turner. I thought overall it was a very powerful and important story.

An in depth fascinating look at the House of Representatives the times of Newt Gingrich.We are taken behind the scenes the path Newt Gi grinch took to change politics and the way the House of Representatives changed under his control.#netgalley#penguinpress

As an Independent voter, I am drawn to political books like a moth to a flame, yet I approach each with trepidation, no matter the side of the aisle where they originate. Nowadays, there is so much division in politics and it is difficult to find books that truly ride the center of the issues. This is also true about “Burning Down the House,” by Julian E. Zelizer.

Not that I didn’t have hopes that this book might rise above the rest. Apart from a few comments here and there early on, the author pointed out errors and misdeeds by both major parties. The book’s title revolves around the author’s premise, that Newt Gingrich used the rules of the House of Representatives to bring down its Speaker, Jim Wright. This was a period of history that I wasn’t applying the same amount of focus that I use nowadays, and I desired to learn more about the event and the main players. Primarily, I wanted to learn what Jim Wright was accused of doing, what Gingrich did to propel the accusations, and whether or not I thought the Speaker had committed the acts in question.

The book begins with much information about Gingrich, though midway it switches gears and Wright takes the major role while Gingrich is shunted aside and almost takes the role of a minor character. The story moves into a presentation of Wright’s life, and to the author’s credit, the accusations seem to be true. Another damning piece of the story is Wright choosing to resign, even though the author insists that the Ethics Commission had not presented any solid evidence. For the Speaker and his party, there was enough of a smoking gun to force him to resign.

Mr. Zelizer concentrates on Congressman Gingrich, insisting that using the very rules of propriety that the House Democrats had helped to construct was improper. It would be silly for anyone to argue that rules are not stretched and broken by members of both parties, and that the guilty parties should be held accountable (another argument for term limits, effectively removing those who serve before they become too comfortable). The partisan elements become more and more apparent, right down to calling Congressman Gingrich’s assistant, Karen Van Brocklin, “…Gingrich’s attack dog.”

The end of the book ties Mr. Zelizer’s opinions together, painting a picture of Congressman Gingrich’s use of the rules as the beginning of the deep partisanship that was helped along by other Republican’s along the way. Meanwhile, Democrats sat idly by and commiserated on the state of affairs (which completely ignores the addition of the community organizing factor that became part of the mix during the Obama years). The point is that both parties have ratcheted up this partisan fury that has now invaded the hearts and minds of Americans. This book does nothing to positively aid the efforts to chain the partisanship and return some sense of civility to our government. I would bet that many reviews will reflect the same mood as each takes a side. For me, I am not happy with either party nor with another book that preaches divisiveness, and thus place my star rating near the middle. Three stars bumped to three-and-a-half for allowing the improprieties of both parties to be presented.

My thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP The Penguin Press for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Julian E. Zelizer, and Penguin Press for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Seeking a hit of good American politics, I turned to this piece by Julian E. Zelizer, which recounts the rise and power change brought on by Newt Gingrich’s time in the US House of Representatives, which culminated in a position as Speaker of the House. Zelizer opens the book with some biographical commentary about Newton ‘Newt’ Gingrich, whose conservative views seemed almost inherent in a household where rules were strict. His formative years saw him push the boundaries and rebel in his own way in rural Georgia, though he was always one to seek out the political side of any argument or group, hoping to imbue his strong opinions. His political leanings were always towards the Republican right, even in the heart of Georgia, which was undergoing a political transformation. With the fallout from Watergate, Gingrich sought to re-invent the GOP and make a difference not only in the grassroots of the party, but from within the walls of power, which for him meant the US House of Representatives. Gritty and determined, Gingrich campaigned to win a seat, which he did in 1978’s mid-term elections, beginning a rabble-rousing career as soon as he was elected. Zelizer shows that Gingrich, even as a new congressman, did not sit quietly and sought attention wherever he could get it. The House was strongly in the Democrats’ hands, but Gingrich knew that his tenacity and cutthroat tactics could turn the tables, even if it took a while. Not always the friend of the Administration—though he strongly supported Reagan in 1980 —Gingrich continued his push to rebrand the House in a more conservative manner, mainly by targeting Democrats who violated some of the more basic rules. As the narrative progresses through some of the more controversial statements and sentiments by Gingrich, he seemed always to know when to speak and how to get the word out, even in times of Republican gaffes, particularly Reagan’s Iran Contra Affair. While the Democrats held onto power through the end of the Reagan Administration, a new Speaker of the House was chosen, one Jim Wright, who became the focus of Gingrich’s attention as he sought to pull apart the Democrats’ control of the House, brick by brick. Through a series of scandals, Gingrich laid the groundwork for the dismantling of Wright—a longtime and well-regarded political figure—in a highly embarrassing way. Gingrich may have set things in motion, but he need not get his hands dirty. Fighting to define himself within the House Republicans, Gingrich secured a key position of power in 1989 when he won the role of Minority Whip, with hopes of ascending from there. He would have to bide his time, but had finally tasted victory and continued to push things to the right, as the House teetered under Democratic leadership into the 1990s. In a flash final chapter, Zelizer describes Gingrich’s rise to power by toppling the Democrats’ control of the House, but also brought down the centre-right George H.W. Bush from winning re-election. His rise to the speakership was a flash in the book, as Gingrich found himself in a scandal all his own. However, his imprint lasted on the Republican Party in the House and helped create the Tea Party movement that emerged in the 2010 mid-term elections. Even though he fared poorly in his 2012 run for president and was not chosen as Trump’s running mate in 2016, Newt Gingrich is not a man soon to be forgotten. Recommended to those who love the inner workings of congressional politics, as well as the reader who loves to see how power and patience can topple any political Goliath.

I was pleasantly surprised with this book and the approach that Julian E. Zelizer took. While one might have expected a piece that pushed Newt Gingrich into the centre of the narrative and used the US political situation as a backdrop, Zelizer did the opposite. Gingrich is present throughout the narrative, but it is more his wheeling and dealing that proves to be a thread and the fallout from it. The narrative is rich with political goings-on in Congress throughout the 1980s and into the 90s, where Gingrich was present, but it was more about how the man could turn the story on its ear and the political machine worked itself out, inevitably to Gingrich’s desired outcomes. Zelizer does a masterful job in exploring the inner workings of the congressional struggles and how both major parties handled things, enriching his narrative with much detail and strong quotes. For the politically curious reader, this gave an almost behind-the-scenes look into how things transpired, as well as the fighting to hold onto power. I was too young to fully appreciate politics of any country in the 1980s and early 90s, but do remember Gingrich when he made it to the Speaker’s chair, so this was all new and highly educational as I learned of things that took place when I was only a lad. This book is not the Newt Gingrich dog and pony show, but highlights the man’s rise to power in reaction to much of what was going on within the House of Representatives and how Gingrich used this to redefine the narrative. With thorough chapters that cover many of the incidents and a keen bird’s eye view of how things progressed in the media and within congressional meeting rooms, the reader can see how power seemed almost to come to Gingrich, who used patience and perseverance to get what he wanted. I loved this approach and thoroughly enjoyed the historical narrative that kept Gingrich as part but not the central character throughout. This subtle approach made the book much more palatable, especially since I am by no means a fan of the right-wing of the GOP. Even mention and discussion about how the eventual Tea Party emerged had me interested and wanting to know more. If I had to offer a criticism, it would be that the final chapter sought to explore too much in too short a time. I am not sure if Zelizer ran out of steam, had an editor who offered a page limitation, or did not want to undertake the research, but Gingrich and his rise to the speakership through to his departure is all packed into a few pages. This does the book and the reader a disservice. Perhaps Zelizer is offering this as a teaser for a follow-up book, but this anti-climactic occurrence makes the premise (Gingrinch’s hunger for power) seem like a discussion that should be shelved. Why climb a mountain and not talk of the view? A man that Zelizer discussed as a potential running mate for Trump in 2016, Newt Gingrich certainly had a strong influence on the move to the right by Congress, though did so in such a way that it seemed almost necessary to rid the country of the nightmares the Democrats left during their long House control.

Kudos, Mr. Zelizer, for this fabulous book that taught me so very much. I loved it and hope to find more of your work in this vein, to educate me even more about the intricacies of the US political system.

This is an incredibly fascinating book about the last 30 or so years of the House of Representatives and how it was changed totally by then speaker Newt Gingrich. The political warfare he engaged in left the government forever changed. The book flows effortlessly and tells an engrossing tale. Julian Zelizer takes a fairly long and intricate story and makes it accessible and engrossing.

Interesting chronicle of how Newt Gingrich studied the Congressional (then-in-power) Democratic playbook, weaponized it, expanded it, and then turned it loose. The result being the downfall of the then powerful Democratic speaker of the house, Jim Wright. And the rise of the Gingrich revolution. Obstruct, delay, demonize, and downright lie, all in the name of remaining in power. As the book points out, to Gingrich, morals are for the other guy. Gingrich laid the foundation that Trump has capitalized on, expanding the demonization to unbelievable levels. I believe that, in the future, history will not treat Gingrich well. He will go into the ranks of scoundrels like McCarthy and Wallace.

An excellent history of Newt Gingrich's rise to power and the incredible impact he has had on American politics. There's no doubt that Gingrich shifted the way politicians in America approach their work, just as his actions changed the way citizens saw, thought of and interacted with their government.

While I would have been far more critical of Gingrich (he is, in my opinion, the root of much of what is wrong with the US and Washington, DC), Zelizer's clear-eyed analysis and explanation is welcome.

Definitely recommended for all interested in American political history, and also those who want to learn more about how we got to where we are today.

This was a political smear at its best. I was interested in history not lopsided opinions. Consequently, I did not enjoy it, but I'm sure there are others who will.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and Penguin Press in exchange for an honest review.

I have maintained for more than 25 years that Reagan started the modern partisan divide and Gingrich codified it (and as more fallout from that came, I've added that Rove and Ailes perfected it; and T benefited). So when this came across my email feed last year through NetGalley, I requested a review copy. But, the request was sadly to me, declined, so I put it on my To Read list. I got a surprising email near the end of April offering it to me (from the publisher Penguin Group, again through NetGalley), so off the To Read and immediately on to Currently Reading! (And obviously, now Read.)

This is an in-depth look at where it began and how Gingrich machiavellied it. One might say "engineered", but I am an engineer and that's insulting, so I coined a new word. And the book is largely focused on the subject of the subtitle - taking down Speaker Jim Wright. Gingrich hardly is mentioned in more than half of the book, as Zelizer relates the complexities of the times and the histories of the event. He gives the well-researched background histories of the players in the grand game, Gingrich and Wright, obviously, but also the others who facilitated the coup or were victims of it. And from my armchair, we are all victims. Zelizer hits it in his Prologue

...the unlikely, unorthodox, nativist populist campaign trump had mounted, which aimed to tear down the political leaders of both parties and to destabilize the entire U.S. political system, was Gingrich's creation.

Zelizer notes that Gingrich recognized that politics in the modern media was "as much about perception as substance" (I'll submit less about substance,or actual substance, anyway). He says "The way journalists framed a story and the narratives they crafted about an issue could be as powerful as the facts." I long for the time when good journalism was about facts. That word doesn't mean what it used to mean.

Zelizer sums it well:

The new GOP goal was not to negotiate or legislate but to do everything necessary to maintain partisan power. If it was politically useful to engage in behavior that could destroy the possibility of governance, which rendered bipartisanship impossible and would unfairly decimate their opponents' reputation, the so be it.

They've been obstructing, destroying, and doing that anything to maintain power since. No legislation, no governing. And Gingrich played a huge role in creating the unculture to which we are subjected. Zelizer says what I've been saying since T broke through: "Gingrich planted; Trump reaped." And his theme: "We can date precisely the moment when our toxic political environment was born: Speaker Wright's downfall in 1989."

Note on my notes: My ADE e-reader allows me to highlight and make notes, but not copy quotes, so I'm going to have to be economical with which ones I'll include here because I have to type the quotes by hand and I have more books to read!

Selected observations:
In 1976,

"Our legislative system," Gingrich insisted with his attention turned toward Capitol Hill, "has become morally, intellectually, and spiritually corrupt."

Like evangelicals and too many of his party, to Gingrich, morals were what other people needed.

On the censure of Congressman Charles Diggs in 1979, a staffer for the NRCC noted

An A.P. reporter who covered Newt and another freshman in 1979 told him last week that there are about six Representatives whose phone numbers reporters know by heart, and Newt's was one of them - because they thought Newt understood what was happening and would play it straight with the press.

Straight...really? Oh how that was both so wrong and portentous.

Some of that background history

Reagan's election had only been possible after fifteen years of a brewing political backlash toward the Democratic embrace of civil rights in 1964 and 1965 - as President Johnson had famously predicted - finally allowed the GOP to start dominating the South.

Zelizer nails it again here.

Crystal ball:

It all came down to this: for republicans to dislodge House Democrats from power, they would have to be ruthless. Democrats didn't play fair, Gingrich believed. He said that incumbents rigged elections through gerrymandering and campaign money; they relied on arcane procedures, such as imposing rules that prevented floor amendments to bills, that disempowered the minority party; and they solidified their public support through corrupt pork-barrel spending and favors for business leaders in their districts.

Wow. Fast forward 15 and 30 years. Who's been gerrymandering and reaping the campaign money?

In 1982, Gingrich wrote to his "fellow Republicans" of the need to develop a coordinated message.

After reviewing twelve Sunday television interview shows, Gingrich came away impressed by how much attention congressional Democrats devoted to perfecting and repeating their message. Republicans were far less polished, Gingrich thought. "A political party which focuses on the management and allocation of campaign resources, and neglects political strategy, is a party that loses, "Gingrich warned. "Two minutes on the evening news is watched by more people, believed by more people, and, politically has a greater multiplier effect than paid political advertising."

Fast forward again...D messages are not polished, not consistent; Rs on the other hand... Of course it helps to have your own Pravda...

Gingrich though bipartisanship was a political trap that only benefited Democrats. Thinking on that, I can't argue.

On muckraker Jack Anderson, who wrote an attack column on Wright titled "SHOOTING AT FISH IN THE PORK BARREL"

Wright resented the piece, which he insisted was based on a fabricated account of the conversation [of a Public Works Committee secret session]. "The Anderson treatment," Wright noted to himself, "is so typical of the growing irresponsibility of sensational 'expose' type journalism that increasingly appalls, angers and even frightens a lot of conscientious public officials."

What was to become the blueprint for Fox.

On a procedural power play that Wright maneuvered for a vote on a deficit reduction bill, there were many temper tantrums by the Rs, and

Dick Cheney growled to the National Journal that the Speaker had proven he was a "heavy-handed son of a bitch"

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle,,,pot. Really?

On congressional accountability,

Without these reformers [reform-oriented institutions], Gingrich looked as if he were orchestrating a shabby partisan coup. They would offer reluctant Republicans the cover they needed to get behind him. This would be his masterstroke, and it would capitalize on the Democrats' shortsightedness.

I've observed that shortsightedness for more than 30 years... On the flipside of today, George Mair, former reporter and Wright's chief press officer in late 1987, attacked journalists and editors of U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times for their slander, innuendo, poor research, flat-out incorrectness, ...

Directly attacking the press was a dangerous strategy. They had a big platform from which to respond. And they did. The editors of these powerful publications were not going to sit quietly by as Mair delivered these reprimands and smeared the reputations of their top journalists. So, the editors exposed Mair's campaign by speaking to reporters. The story looked to many Americans like an effort to intimidate and harass honest journalists investigating potential corruption.

Well, damn... like some procedural reforms that backfired on them, they set the stage up for the other guys. T and ilk lowered the bar to the mind-numbing nadir it is today (I recommend Jim Acosta's book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America.)

In 1988, Michael Dukakis got a lot of mileage from (the at-the-time the worst presidency ever, my opinion):

The opinion that Reagan had run the "most corrupt administration" in American history was prevalent in Democratic circles.

Surpassed as another #1 by the 2017 administration, likely to never be broken. Another way the Ds started something that the Rs perfected:

The House Ethics Committee had earned a bad reputation since its creation in 1967. The solution for previous chairmen of this panel, like John Flynt, had been to do nothing when a complaint was made. With Democrats in perpetual control of the House, Republicans saw the committee as one more example of how the opposition abused their power to protect its own members, regardless of the sordid behavior that ethics investigations turned up.

Like I said, the Rs became masters of this. Another stage-setter, on the promotion of Gingrich's book, Window of Opportunity,

The COS [Conservative Opportunity Society] Limited Partnership, as Gingrich called it, raised $105,000 in 1984. Each partner contributed $5,000 to the fund. The goal, Gingrich genially acknowledged to a reporter, was a half-baked plan to "force a best-seller", which would of course enhance Gingrich's public standing.

Hardly a blink when Jr. did it 34 years later.

Then there were The Words...

Still, legislation remained a secondary concern for Gingrich, who spent most of his first month as minority whip selling his message to reporters. He tested out catchphrases such as the "looney left" to describe Democrats to the press. One of his favorite terms was "institutional corruption,"...

Where Gingrich crafted the narrative, T lowered it to a juvenile level. Journalists suffer greatly now. And as to journalism, the unwitting complicity...

Good government organizations and mainstream reporters, not always thinking about how they might be playing into a concerted partisan attack, had moved the investigation [of Wright] forward on their own terms, finding time after time smoke that looked like fire.

As they did in the election of 2000 and since...And on the ethics hearing,

What bothered Democrats most was that Wright's team did not seem to understand the most fundamental point: a technical defense would not work in such a highly politicized environment.

Neither would it work in the impeachment of 2020.

In his penultimate chapter titled "Gingrich on Top", Zelizer finally called the wrongwing for what they are: "Gingrich and his ilk had been emboldened." In his Wright's response in his step-down speech, Wright urged both parties to 'bring this period of mindless cannibalism to an end!'" Thirty one years later, I still do not think we will see that in my lifetime. Zelizer notes "Once politicians lowered the bar as to what kinds of actions were permissible in the political arena, it was virtually impossible to restore conditions to where they had been."

And we come to the codification of the lowered bar...

The gospel of Gingrich kept spreading. He literally shared his rhetorical style through a GOPAC pamphlet first distributed in 1990, titled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," which he crafted with the pollster Frank Luntz, that offered a road map to replicate his way with words. Responding to Republican candidates who, GOPAC said, had told them, "I wish I could speak like newt," the memo recommended using certain words repeatedly like "corruption," "traitors," "sick," "radical," "shame," "pathetic," "steal," and "lie" to describe the Democrats.

This has continued to this day, only getting worse. Gingrich found himself a victim, reaping what he sowed when he was the first Speaker in history to be punished for ethics violations.

In the next to last paragraph of his concluding chapter "Mindless Cannibalism", Zelizer quotes President Obama...

We've seen this coming. Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails. There were no governing principles, there was no one to say, 'No, this is going too far, this isn't what we stand for.' But we've seen it for eight years, even with the reasonable people like John Boehner, who, when push came to shove, wouldn't push back against these currents.

Spot on, Mr. President.

The fires Gingrich started still burn. If his part-time belief in a hell has any truth, his ticket was punched long ago.

In Burning Down the House Julian Zelizer tells the story of the rise of Newt Gingrich to Congress and how his style of politics would eventually become the norm, not just in the Republican party but American politics in general.

Before Gingrich, Congress was an institution built on compromise and friendships were bipartisan. That is not to say that politics was this idealized love fest people who look at previous political generations make it out to be. But at least there was some form of unorthodox decorum. Enter Newt Gingrich with his strategic chiseling at the idea that Congress as an institution was broken and corrupt from decades of Democratic rule.

Gingrich wanted the Republicans to gain control of the House of Representatives and power for himself. The key in political messaging is to stay on one constant coherent message and political corruption was his bone of attack. If you dig far enough no matter how questionable the means you are bound to find something. Suddenly even Republicans who detest Gingrich tactics think “Maybe this fellow is onto something.”

The main event of this saga is the ethics investigation of Jim Wright-the Democratic Speaker of the House. While Gingrich certainly was the key cheerleader for this investigation, he curiously goes MIA for large portions of this saga possibly because the scandal grew bigger than Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich into the death of old politics and the birth of the new politics and what we expect out of our political leaders.

While the account of the battle between Gingrich and Wright is dramatic and interesting, the question that I have is: Was this turn towards a more partisan brand of politics an inevitability that Gingrich just happened to be better at exploiting than others or was there something unique about Newt Gingrich that was able to make politics so divisive in a relatively short period of time.

An interesting and thought-provoking book about a man, the politics he practiced, and the consequences of those politics.

Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, provides an in-depth analysis of Newt Gingrich's rise to power within the Republican Party. Zelizer pays particular attention to the new political strategy that Gingrich introduced in the House of Representatives and its long-term consequences for American politics. He argues that "the unlikely, unorthodox, nativist populist campaign Trump had mounted, which aimed to tear down political leaders of both parties and to destabilize the entire U.S. political system, was Gingrich's creation." Gingrich advanced this strategy in the 1980s and 1990s in an effort to reclaim a political majority in the House of Representatives. As part of his no-holds-barred approach to acquiring a Republican majority, he took down first Democratic party congressman Charlie Diggs and later the Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright. To do so, he took advantage of new congressional ethics rules that had been put in place following the Watergate Scandal and played on the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam public distrust of government offices.

However, Zelizer does not place the blame on Gingrich alone, or even on a Republican party that abandoned comity and bi-partisanship in pursuit of power. Specifically, he cites the Democrats' willingness to throw Wright under the proverbial bus for political expediency.. At the point that Wright was forced to resign, he had not been found guilty of any infraction. Moreover, Wright lacked the political skills to survive "in an increasingly brutal, polarized world where the parties grew further and further apart with each passing day. He also describes the limitations of the finance and ethics reforms enacted in the 1970s under a Democratic Party majority as a contributing factor. By not enacting reforms that removed the pervasive influence of private money on Capitol Hill, the Democrats, as the majority, made themselves vulnerable to charges of corruption.

Although Newt Gingrich would eventually be brought down as Speaker of the House by the very tactics that he had championed, those tactics did not die with his downfall. In 2012, Gingrich would run for the Republican presidential nomination. Among the policies that he championed was an expanded border wall between the United States and Mexico. He also defended Trump's claim that Obama was not an American citizen. Although Gingrich' lost in 2012, Trump would win the presidential election with the exact same approach four-years later.

The author's research is meticulous, and the writing-style is highly engaging. Although primarily targeted at an academic audience, armchair political buffs should also enjoy this balanced study of the changing dynamics of American politics. Still there were a few places where I would like to have seen the author expand his analysis. For example, he mentions that in his 2012 presidential bid, Gingirch's "moneymaking ventures as a consultant and businessman -- more than $100 million earned in his first decade after being speaker -- became problematic for someone who wanted to be seen as a man of the people." However, he offers no explanation as to why just four years later, this same issue would not be a problem for Donald Trump. There were also a few places where I thought less detail was needed. For example, he provides extensive background on Wright's political rise to power -- much of which this reader did not feel was necessary and interrupted the flow of what was otherwise a well-aced narrative. But these criticism are minor and this book is well worth reading by anyone interested in the divisive politics that define the United States today.