I orginally posted this review ofThe Assault on Reason by Al Gore. on the Good Reads website.
I find it a bit ironic that, after the news media's characterization during the 2000 election of Al Gore as the stiffest of unelectable suits, Gore reinvented himself in the traditionally sexy worlds of publishing and movie-making -- and now has a Nobel to show for his efforts.
If Gore's split public persona reflects in his writing, it serves him well: he brings to the page an admirable combination of restraint and passion, qualities largely absent in most of the current bumper crop of political books aimed at a general audience. The contrast between Gore's tone and that of, say, right-wing megaphone Glenn Bleck should leave fair-minded readers with no doubt as to whose motives are essentially pure here.
The strengths of The Assault on Reason are possibly its weaknesses as well. In his elucidation of the current, titular assault, Gore skims through the European Englightenment and the American independence movement, invoking thinkers from Thomas Paine to Thomas Pynchon along the way. Gore's palate is broad, and squeezing so much information and so many ideas into a relatively short book necessitates superficial treatment of this material. However, at a time when a solid majority of American adults supposedly cannot name a Supreme Court justice, a bit of remedial history is not at all patronizing.
