I’ve recently seen this book compared to Robert Caro’s classic The Power Broker which I would say is accurate in terms of subject, caliber of writing, and deeply fascinating political anecdotes, but where Caro goes deep and wide, Rivlin is more focused, and the tighter result is in some ways better: a masterpiece encapsulation of the ugliest and most inspiring aspects of human governance.
This historical treatise has a lot of notoriety but I found it unnecessarily dense, and ultimately flawed, in that its focus on states and state power ignores a related discussion of capitalist power, such that altho there is a useful perspective to glean here about how a drive for social legibility can transform a society, I wouldn't recommend the book overall.
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