Washington Is Burning reveals the inner workings of Trump's Washington - a grotesque carnival of corruption. Andrew Cockburn sets fire to US pieties, focusing on the spectacular greed at the heart of the nation's political system.

Graft and self-interest have long typified both Democratic and Republican administrations. Cockburn charts the connections between the American military bureaucracy and the defense industry, which have created a senseless drive for ever-greater spending on arms. After the failed adventures of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon now seeks fresh rewards through inflating the threat from China and Iran, deploying time-tested techniques to boost the budget, including the invocation of supposedly superior enemy weapons development.

The American empire has reached a watershed. With Trump back in the White House, Washington Is Burning is a must-read account of unedifying practices in the US capital.

A smart, strongly leftist take on contemporary American politics from a noted political correspondent. * Kirkus *

ANDREW COCKBURN is the Washington Editor of Harper's Magazine. He is a regular opinion contribu­tor to the Los Angeles Times and has written for, among others, the New York Times, National Geographic, and the London Review of Books. He is the author of Spoils of War, Kill Chain, and Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy.