American Carnage
How Trump, Musk and DOGE Butchered the US Government
Format:Paperback
Publisher:OR Books
Publishing:5th Mar '26
£13.99
This title is due to be published on 5th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A gripping narrative of federal workers caught in Trump’s second-term purge, and the devastating consequences for American democracy.
American Carnage follows eleven federal workers, in eight government agencies, from the time they were told they were fired in the early weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidential administration through to the summer of 2025. With Trump having empowered the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and his Department of Government Efficiency, to make dramatic cuts to many of the country’s most important agencies, what unfolded in these months was a cascading tragedy of historic proportions.
Their stories, which show a country in a profound moment of crisis and dislocation, are America’s stories. What happened to them—the bullying, the intimidation, the deliberate removal of financial stability—also happened to hundreds of thousands of other employees. A fierce reckoning with the intimate and far-reaching effects of these layoffs, both on the individuals who lost their jobs and on the millions of Americans who found their access to basic government services curtailed, American Carnage is the first book-length account of how these cuts dulled and denuded our city on the hill, leaving a morally impoverished landscape in their wake.
“A compassionate portrait of some of the many who suffered when Musk’s foot soldiers targeted dedicated professionals.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“American Carnage is an important, much-needed book that tells the compelling stories of eleven dedicated federal employees – public servants – who got trampled and trashed by Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s hugely destructive and short-sighted campaign to smash the federal government. Sasha Abramsky’s book shines a bright light on the human toll of Trump’s wrecking ball.”
—Steven Greenhouse, author of Beaten Down, Worked Up, and former labor correspondent for the New York Times
“Electrifying, devastating and utterly necessary. Sasha Abramsky’s new book American Carnage is political dynamite. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Roman Krznaric, bestselling author of Empathy, The Good Ancestor, and History for Tomorrow
“An indefatigable warrior for justice whose journalism will both tugs at your heart and focus your commitment to fight for moral repair.”
—Rick Perlstein, bestselling author of Nixonland and Reaganland
“With a blend of empathetic reporting and scathing analysis, American Carnage lays bare an extraordinary episode in US history—offering a glimpse of a hurricane that now threatens to destroy all in its path.”
—Jonathan Freedland, author of The Traitors Circle
“A chilling work of narrative journalism . . . through the lives of eleven federal workers, Abramsky reveals in stunning detail how political retribution becomes personal catastrophe.”
—Bill Lichtenstein
ISBN: 9781682196762
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
150 pages