Michael Lewis’s brilliant narrative of the Trump administration’s botched presidential transition takes us into the engine rooms of a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed. The government manages a vast array of critical services that keep us safe and underpin our lives from ensuring the safety of our food and drugs and predicting extreme weather events to … tracking and locating black market uranium before the terrorists do. The Fifth Risk masterfully and vividly unspools the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works.
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Michael Lewis is a national treasure, and his exposure of the Trump administration’s attempts to oust professional scientists and replace them with inept or corrupt political appointees is frightening. It’s a tale filled with harassment, willful ignorance and shocking ineptitude.
It reveals how the previous administration tried many ways to help the new Trump team when taking office, and how little the new people were in learning from the past and ill prepared they were for knowing their job and history of their new positions. It is evident how pervasive that an unscientific attitude has slid into our federal government and implications for America today. Read it and weep or just angry as hell.
This has a political focus on the Trump administration but I (enjoyed?, was terrified by?) it because in actuality it’s a cautionary tale about any administration that exhibits a profound lack of curiosity about how our government works and what individual agencies do in an effort to keep the public safe. To say the least, reading this was an eye-opening experience and one that every US citizen should take to heart.
A great look behind the scenes of what the U.S. government does, how it works, and the big, mostly unheralded, wins it has achieved.
Enlightening
“It’s what you fail to imagine that kills you,” writes Michael Lewis.
If so, we’re in deep doo-doo. The 5th Risk is government incompetence.
The book retells the federal government’s transition from Obama to Trump, and if you care about facts, planning, and science, it’s downright scary.
The most important takeaway from the book: The US Government is intended to be a force for GOOD. The biggest (and best) part of its job is to protect us (all of us!) from a long list of catastrophes: hurricanes, food poisoning, lethal radiation—but most importantly: our own greed, malice, and incompetence.
Read this and vote in 2020.
~D. L. Orton, author of the best-selling Between Two Evils series. Get the 1st book in the series, Crossing In Time: An Edgy Love Story (Between Two Evils Book 1), for free right now!
No matter how incompetent and corrupt you may believe Trump and his administration to be, the reality is even worse. God help us. This book sounds a needed alarm that may, if Republicans and Trump supporters are willing to read it, help people to wake up to the danger America is in.
On a lighter note, this book is a very engaging read. It is hard to put down before finishing. Lewis brings those he chronicles to life, and he tells their stories in a dramatic and emotionally engaging way.
The main theme of the book is what the American government does for it’s people, sharing stories of unsung heroes and programs that most Americans know nothing about. From people at NOAA learning how to better earn residents of tornadoes to the work done by the DOE to prevent toxic waste from poisoning local communities and tracking down loose nukes, the book shines a light on hard-working civil servants who’s sole goal is to make life better for everyone.
An undercurrent that runs through the book is the negative impact of the turnover with the Trump administration. Time and time again, it shows a small army of civil servants ready to brief the incoming administration, only to sit alone in a large conference room. It illustrates the dangers of an administration that is not only ignorant of what the government does but unwilling to learn anything that runs contrary to thier preconceived notions.
I recommend this book to any American, regardless of political party. While the book is critical of the Trump administration, it is largely nonpartisan, praising programs created by both Bush and Obama. This book is an education of what our taxes actually pay for, and it’s to make America better.
Vastly important book for people who want to understand what agencies like the Commerce Department, the Department of Energy and the USDA actually do — and what the Trump administration is doing to hurt all of them.
Forget Fear, forget Fire and Fury, The Fifth Risk is the book everyone should be reading about the Trump administration. As a civil servant (though not an American one) this book was in equal parts infuriating and inspiring. A must read for anyone with an interest in the institution of government and the relationship that it has with its citizens.
This book is an eye-opener which describes the many ways in which the federal bureaucracy implements programs that make the lives of ordinary Americans better. It also describes the lackadaisical approach the current administration has taken in sustaining those programs. It is not just informative but scary in that critical programs could languish or even fail. It also warns of the damage that opportunistic political appointees may inflict on programs that keep Americans fed and safe. It is typical of Michael Lewis in that it is thoughtful and a breeze to read.
Only complaint is that I wanted more. Another chapter and a conclusion would’ve been nice
How ignorance of the workings of government, greed and corruption can harm our democracy
Your government behind the scenes
A clear-eyed examination of the unseen havoc being unleashed by the Trump administration.
It was exceptionally well written, but reading it made me angry about the current political administration. It’s scary that the most powerful position in the world is inhabited by someone of such limited abilities. I enjoyed learning about all that is done within each of the 3 cabinet departments, a lot of which I didn’t know. The book is well organized. The author makes no verbal judgments but gives the reader enough information to make judgments him or herself.
Everyone should read this book. So well-written it reads like a novel. It tells the little known true facts about our government, climate change, and so much more. You will be ‘ in the know’ with what is truly happening all around us.
This was shocking. Even to those of us with a low opinion of the Trump Administration. The federal government employs 2 million people and none of the Trump people came in apparently caring anything about those 2 million jobs or how to do any of them. Most career employees are there for the mission, not the money. But Trump and his people couldn’t be bothered to show up for training or transition interviews with the people who would be shortly handing over the reins.
I gave my copy to my Republican sister who wants to know what happened to her Republican party. Should be required reading for the citizenry.
Scared me about this administrations lack of preparedness.
Michael Lewis is the best at taking arcane subjects and turning them into page-turning fascinating reads. Bet you never cared about the Department of Energy. You will after reading about how they track all the potential nuclear bomb material in the world and what might happen if budget cuts by uninformed people stop them from doing that. Nuclear war on purpose is one thing, but accidental nuclear that the US gets dragged into because we were too cheap to keep oversight staff in the Department of Energy boggles the mind. And is something I never thought of before. If you liked Moneyball and The Big Short or any of his other books, you’ll like this one too.