Palast, Greg. Armed Madhouse. New York: Dutton, 2006. 360 pages.
This is a collection of gonzo investigative chapters that are humorous
and outrageous at the same time. Palast admits this in the introduction:
"I like to read in the loo, so this book, like my last, can be read in
short spurts, in any order. To that end, I've eliminated the consistency
and continuity that I despise in other books. Nevertheless, be aware of the
chronological arc. We move from September 11, 2001 (The Fear), to fear's
foreign outing in the oil fields of Iraq (The Flow), to the widening global
economic conflict (The Network), to the concomitant need to manipulate the
elections of 2004 and 2008 (The Con), concluding with the drowning of New
Orleans, the Gettysburg of The Class War."
Even Palast himself doesn't quite convey the stream-of-consciousness,
wide-ranging nature of this book. Apart from a dozen pages on Hugo Chavez,
whom Palast met in 2002, it is rare that any single topic gets more than a
few paragraphs. Perhaps that's the risk you take when you have a long record
as an excellent investigative journalist, and current events keep getting
more absurd despite this. Note that this book was written before the global
meltdown of 2008, when capitalism was exposed as a giant Ponzi scheme, and
our major media announced every day that Wall Street's recovery is right
around the corner. At this rate, one has to wonder what Palast's next book
will be like.
ISBN 0-525-94968-2
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