Profiles in Cowardice

“The appeasement of Donald Trump is a sordid story. It is also, in Weisberg's hands, a gripping one.” – JILL LEPORE

For years now, people around the world have watched Donald Trump push the boundaries of presidential power and asked the same question: how has he been allowed to get away with it?

In Profiles in Cowardice, Jacob Weisberg has written one of the first defining books of the Trump Era – how this pitch-black political moment happened, why so few resisted, and what it reveals about the character of American leadership.

Through profiles of eight individuals who form an entwined network of power in America – among them Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, the New York lawyer Brad Karp and Senator Mitch McConnell – Weisberg explores how authoritarianism can take root in an open society, not by overthrowing institutions, but by bending and bullying them into submission.

Sharp, timely and deeply relevant far beyond America, Profiles in Cowardice is a gripping portrait of power and moral compromise in the Trump era. This is not a story about monsters or masterminds, but about ordinary human instincts – fear, ambition, self-preservation – and the quiet compromises through which democracies can slowly begin to unravel.