Bush at War

By: Bob Woodward

Narrated by: James Naughton

Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

With his unmatched investigative skill, Bob Woodward tells the behind-the-scenes story of how President George W. Bush and his top national security advisers, after the initial shock of the September 11 attacks, led the nation to war.

Extensive quotations from the secret deliberations of the National Security Council - and firsthand revelations of the private thoughts, concerns, and fears of the president and his war cabinet - make Bush at War an unprecedented chronicle of a modern presidency in a time of grave crisis.

Based on interviews with more than a hundred sources and four hours of exclusive interviews with the president, Bush at War reveals Bush's sweeping, almost grandiose, vision for remaking the world. "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player," the president said.

Woodward's virtual wiretap into the White House Situation Room reveals a stunning group portrait of an untested president and his advisers, three of whom might themselves have made it to the presidency. In Bush at War, Bob Woodward once again delivers a reporting tour de force.

©2002 Bob Woodward, All Rights Reserved (P)2002 Simon & Schuster Inc., All Rights Reserved, AUDIOWORKS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

"With rare access to the Bush White House, Woodward has again given us a masterpiece of political reportage." (Barnes&Noble.com)

Bush at War

George Bush couldn't have written a more glossy and favorable profile of himself. This was surprising to me coming from someone synonymous with the Watergate discovery and investigation. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see the image the White House wished to project and how Mr. Woodward feigned objectivity while dutifully acting out the part of court historian.

Puff Piece

This is a puff piece for the Bush administration. The only interesting fact is that Bush always intended to invade Iraq, even before he was elected.

Where's The Beef?

Interesting backround information but not enough substance. Woodward's lack of objectivity shows.

*** WARNING: ABRIDGED! ***

Note: my ratings are for the Audible recording, not the original book.

This is a HEAVILY abridged version. It's beyond me why anyone would think it's worthwhile to create an abridged version, since it's the type of book that's generally read by people who are interested in the behind-the-scenes details, but I find it mind-boggling that for some inexplicable reason, Audible tries to mask this information.

I bought it through the Android app, where as far as I can tell, having gone back and carefully examined to product page, there is no indication that it's abridged. At the web site, there is no indication of abridgement in the listing you get from the search results. When you load the product page, the words "Abridged Audiobook" appear in the information to the right of the cover image but disappear after about 2 seconds (along with language and publisher), and you have to scroll down and notice that the info is in a "Product Details" section below. I can't understand why such highly relevant information would be made to flash momentarily and disappear just to create additional whitespace next to the cover -- it's not as if it makes the page more compact (though it's not as if that would be a valid reason anyway).

That means that you have to both know *that* you need to look for this info, and know *where* to look -- you're unlikely to notice it if you're not actively looking. This is something that should be prominent and impossible to miss, such as in bold red in the main listing!

The only reason I became aware of it is that I like to do hybrid audio/text reading, so I keep Audible and an ePub in split screen and alternate back and forth, otherwise I would have finished the whole thing and never knew what I was missing. A few pages into chapter 3 I started noticing that sections of the text weren't included in the recording, and once I started watching out for it I could see that the omissions were frequent and substantial. It's not just peripheral verbiage that's removed, and in my opinion the abridgement totally sucks the life out of the book.

I returned it and will just read the ePub, and I highly recommend that you not buy this in the first place. If you want audio, try the "Read Aloud" feature in Google Play Books. (It's a shame that Kindle doesn't have this feature. Apparently it's because they don't want their e-reader to compete with Audible, but it's very short-sighted because this is THE reason Google Play gets most of my ePub business instead of Amazon, even though otherwise Kindle is the better app.)