Fear and Fury

The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • In this masterful, groundbreaking work, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Heather Ann Thompson shines surprising new light on an infamous 1984 New York subway shooting that would unveil simmering racial resentments and would lead, in unexpected ways, to a fractured future and a new era of rage and violence.

"A gripping and powerful account of one of the 20th century's most important criminal cases." --James Foreman Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our Own

On December 22, 1984, in a graffiti-covered New York City subway car, passengers looked on in horror as a white loner named Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teens, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, at point-blank range. He then disappeared into a dark tunnel. After an intense manhunt, and his eventual surrender in New Hampshire, the man the tabloid media had dubbed the “Death Wish Vigilante” would become a celebrity and a hero to countless ordinary Americans who had been frustrated with the economic fallout of the Reagan 80s. Overnight, Goetz’s young victims would become villains.

Out of this dramatic moment would emerge an angry nation, in which Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and later Fox News Network stoked the fear and the fury of a stunning number of Americans.

Drawing from never-before-seen archival materials, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson narrates the Bernie Goetz Subway shootings and their decades-long reverberations, while deftly recovering the lives of the boys whom too many decided didn't matter. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and a searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.

Broke my idealistic bubble

Enlightening and reality altering. This is a must read for anyone that was born in the early 80s and think like was amazing.

Great Story, terrible political commentary

The story of the Bernie Goetz crime and trials is fascinating. Truly a miscarriage of justice. The author's political commentary takes up way too much time and is mostly crap.

Important story well delivered

Narration is better than merely acceptable.

As precursor to the Dravidian fiasco and Oklahoma bombing, this story is interesting and informative. The tragic, mismanaged assault is described in detail. How sad it is that weaver could not have been arrested under less provocative circumstances.

This book needs editing. Much too much attention is given to describing the weavers’ lives prior to ruby ridge. This background could have been summarized on many fewer pages.

Riveting and thoughtful examination of how we got here. Everyone should read this book.

So many of us have been searching for an answer. How did American politics get where it is today? This book helps answer that question by telling the story of 4 boys who were exploited by the media, failed by the justice system and abandoned by the American people.

Very interesting book.

This book provides background for how this country ended up as it is now. It gives a snapshot into the history that paved the way for lack of common sense and morality. Although there is another ’side’ to the story that drove this country into the situation it is in, I can’t help but believe that attacks on immigrants and minorities, and at times, our own US citizens has been “okayed by” the GOP and their MAGA voters born by Trump. (The most immature, vindictive and corrupt president ever)