Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump

by Michael Isikoff

Hardcover, 2018

Call number

324.973 ISI

Collection

Nonfiction

Genres

General Nonfiction

History

Publication

Twelve (2018), 352 pages

Description

Politics. Nonfiction. HTML: The incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the US election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency. Russian Roulette is a story of political skulduggery unprecedented in American history. It weaves together tales of international intrigue, cyber espionage, and superpower rivalry. After US-Russia relations soured, as Vladimir Putin moved to reassert Russian strength on the global stage, Moscow trained its best hackers and trolls on US political targets and exploited WikiLeaks to disseminate information that could affect the 2016 election. The Russians were wildly successful and the great break-in of 2016 was no "third-rate burglary." It was far more sophisticated and sinister-a brazen act of political espionage designed to interfere with American democracy. At the end of the day, Trump, the candidate who pursued business deals in Russia, won. And millions of Americans were left wondering, what the hell happened? This story of high-tech spying and multiple political feuds is told against the backdrop of Trump's strange relationship with Putin and the curious ties between members of his inner circle-including Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn-and Russia. Russian Roulette chronicles and explores this bizarre scandal, explains the stakes, and answers one of the biggest questions in American politics: How and why did a foreign government infiltrate the country's political process and gain influence in Washington?.… (more)

Library's review

It's exhausting... trying to keep up with the day-to-day insanity of the Trump-Russia revelations. Isikoff and Corn's book is a useful, if also exhausting, refresher course in the early days of this mess. There are details, especially from the two months prior to the election, that are easy to have

forgotten, and some that were never really publicized all that much. The question remains: when (and how) will this end, and how (and when) will we repair the damage and build a more just society? (Brian)

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User reviews

LibraryThing member arubabookwoman

This is the complete story, insofar as is now known, of how the Russians hacked our democratic election in 2016. This was not a "3rd rate burglary" like Watergate, but was well-planned, well-executed, and very damaging. This book explains it all, beginning with the holding of the Miss Universe

contest in Moscow in 2013. What the Russians did was horrifying, but perhaps more horrifying is how long it took our government to realize the extent of what was going on and the damage it was causing.

I'm an "MSNBC Mom" (It's a "thing" according to a recent NYT article), and I pretty much keep up on these things, but this book puts all the snippets together and connects them logically so that the depth of the damage can't be ignored. I think this is an essential book to read to help understand the state our country is in today. Highly recommended.

4 stars

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6 more

LibraryThing member Clara53

This book gives a rather comprehensive, in-depth, and unbiased coverage of Russian cyber interference in our elections of 2016 - producing the detailed timeline of when/how it all happened. What we know from the news is one thing - powerful in its separate episodes; here, though, all the dots are

connected in a most meticulous manner of thorough investigative reporting.

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LibraryThing member MrDickie

About the relationship between the Trump family, and cronies,. and the Russians during the presidential campaign and after. I found the book to be rather dull. I read 224 pages of about 305 pages before I decided to return the book to the public library.

LibraryThing member anandrajan

Good book on Trump and Russia but Collusion by Luke Harding came out first. This book does add a lot more though.

LibraryThing member Susan.Macura

If you read just one book on Trump and Russia, this is the one to read. Having read several, this is the definitive one. Michael Isikoff and David Corn, two investigative reporters, join forces to trace the ties Donald J. Trump and various Russians have had traced back many years, even before he

declared his intention to run for president. Unfortunately for the American electorate, Trump has kept many of these contacts, attempts to conduct business in Russia and various obligations, financial and otherwise, to people and entities in that nation, a secret. For instance, if we could see his tax returns, we might be able to find some assurance that he is not a "stooge" for Putin, but unfortunately, Trump is the first president in recent history to deny the American people this transparency. This is both an enlightening and frightening look at Russia's interference in our election that midway changed to assist in the election of Trump, someone who was a "friend" to Russia who could be controlled and manipulated, right up to the investigation by Mueller into this situation. After reading this, unless Mueller is a fool which I highly doubt, his investigation will proved a disaster for Trump and his administration.

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LibraryThing member AliceAnna

Isikoff and Corn do an excellent job of laying out the origin story (including all the players) of the Russian investigation. No huge surprises (if you've been watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC), but they really make this huge beast of a mess into a coherent, organized narrative. Can't wait for the

next installment which will (hopefully) conclude with the imprisonment of several traitors who sold out the U.S. and cozied up to Putin.

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LibraryThing member c.archer

An insightful read.

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