Katie Roche's Blog

Book Review- “The Room Where it Happened” by John Bolton

John Bolton’s long-awaited book was published on Tuesday 23rd June. The book focuses on international relations while Bolton was in position as Trump’s National Security Advisor. While the book doesn’t exactly heap praise on Trump, compared to other accounts of Trump’s White House, it portrays Trump in a relatively sympathetic light. It lays at least some blame for the failings of the Trump administration on the “axis of adults”- a group consisting of former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster- who often obstructed Trump’s attempts to implement policy.

What I liked about the book was that it is very detailed. It also gave some chilling insights into the influence of foreign powers on Trump’s government. For instance, when Putin tells Trump that he wanted Trump to become president, and planted the idea that Clinton was accepting money from Russia. Also, the book displays Trump’s failure to understand the simplest aspects of international relations- from falling for tricks of dangerous dictators, to threatening to withdraw from NATO.

However, there were many things I didn’t like about the book. The main issue is that the book is very verbose. At 548 pages, it is not an easy to read book. While it’s great that it’s so detailed, some details perhaps could have been skipped out. Several chapters could have been reduced considerably or skipped altogether.

My overall impression is that it’s not a bad book. But it certainly isn’t a light read, and it requires a firm knowledge of international relations. Nonetheless, it is of value to anyone who is interested in more intricate aspects of the Trump administration.

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