Devil's Bargain

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Nationalist Uprising

By: Joshua Green

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

The instant number-one New York Times best seller

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump - the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump's penthouse on election night.

The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump's unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn't see. Trump's campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world.

Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil's Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election, many of them orchestrated by Bannon and his allies, who really did plot a vast right-wing conspiracy to stop Clinton. To understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton's fall, you have to weave Trump's story together with Bannon's, or else it doesn't make sense.

©2017 Joshua Green (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

One of The New York Times Book Review’s Notable Books of 2017 One of NPR’s Great Reads of 2017

“The first deeply insightful political narrative of the Trump era.” (David Leonhardt, The New York Times)

“You won’t be able to put it down. I certainly couldn’t, surrendering a weekend I should have rightly spent with the kids. I spent it instead with a 63-year-old nationalist whom Time magazine all but called the shadow President of the United States.... Addictive.” (Newsweek)

“Mr. Green is a talented reporter and a gifted storyteller. The anecdotes he records from the chaotic 2016 Trump campaign are both well chosen (they’re there for thematic reasons, not as gratuitous gossip) and brilliantly told.” (Wall Street Journal)

Important.

A well done reference type work useful to those seeking to comprehend the current state of play in American politics as per the current assemblage of major players.

Interesting analysis of Bannons alt right network

Green describes how banning builds an alternative hard right network in opposition to mainstream republicans and the Kochbrothers network. I

lacks white house role

doesn't go over much of the role of Steve in white house as chief strategist and how he was dibbed the great manipulator

Not a fan of Steve Bannon

I'm no fan of Steve Bannon but this was a good book. It was a well researched account of his life and a well researched account of his role in the Trump campaign and presidency. Very interesting how influential one man can be in changing the course of politics.

The Other Bannon

Eye opening and informative, the circle that Bannon knew and trusted and the his downfall detailed

Great read! Relevant

Insightful book. Highly recommend it to better understand American politics in our day and undercurrents of political discourse.

Objective

Despite what your political affiliation is and what you think you know about the people in the book, the author does a great job laying out the facts and history surrounding these men. You really get to know these people’s history and gives a lot of context to their actions in the public sphere. It is a must read for people on both sides of the political spectrum. Very well done by the author.

Great Insider Book

This is a great book to get to know Steve Bannon more. A lot of interesting facts I didn't know about Bannon and really helped me understand everything going on currently with his resigning.

Today, a must read

It gives you insight into what is "really" going on in the media, twitter and Washington DC.

Amazing

I got this book because I wanted to know the story of the long career climb that put Steve Bannon in a position to help make Donald Trump president. I was not disappointed.

Most books focus exclusively on Trump’s campaign strategies, which are interesting, but fail to explain the story behind Bannon’s rose.

I’m personally much more interested in hearing the steps Bannon took to become a political kingmaker - which is something the author here explains perfectly.

Great book. Highly recommended.