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

by Heather Ann Thompson

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR A 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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Crime, True Crime, American History, Race

Audible Audio

First published January 27, 2026

About the author

HEATHER ANN THOMPSON is an award-winning historian at the University of Michigan. She has written on the history of mass incarceration, as well as its current impact, for The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, Salon, Dissent, New Labor Forum, and The Huffington Post. She served on a National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarcerations in the United States and has given Congressional briefings on this subject. Thompson is also the author of Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City and editor of Speaking Out: Activism and Protest in the 1960s and 1970s.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Bernie Goetz had already become a celebrity. The public didn’t yet know his name, but he was being heralded by the local media as a hero. He was the ‘Death Wish Vigilante.’ He was a real-life Charles Bronson. He had stood up to the city’s ‘thugs’ as few others had the guts to do. The Bernie Goetz subway shootings would unveil simmering racial resentments, ones that had been carefully fueled during the Reagan eighties. And they would unleash and legitimize a new era of white racial rage. This moment would profoundly change America…”
- Heather Ann Thompson, Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage

Four black teenagers entered a subway car on December 22, 1984. They were horsing around as teenagers tend to do. Undoubtedly they were intent on committing petty larceny, and carried screwdrivers to pry open coin receptables in arcade games or laundromat machines. All accounts agree that those screwdrivers were never brandished. Eventually, one of the teens approached a white man named Bernie Goetz, and asked him for money. In response, Goetz pulled out a handgun loaded with hollow-point rounds and began firing.

All four teenagers were struck. Two were hit in the back. One was shot while sitting down. Somehow, all four survived, though one would be paralyzed for life. After briefly going on the lam, Goetz turned himself into law enforcement, made a lengthy confession, and was charged with a bevy of serious crimes. Given the justice system in America, you probably have a good idea how that turned out.

This thoroughly depressing tale is the subject of Heather Ann Thompson’s magnificent Fear and Fury. She provides a comprehensive account of the shooting and its aftermath, while also placing it firmly within the context of a pivotal point in American history, when we collectively decided that the nation’s wealth should not be used to fund social services. Though I disagree with the subtitle’s assertion that the Goetz shootings were a “rebirth of white rage” – that rage never really abated since the end of the Civil War – it provides a strong argument that many of the current societal ills, for Americans of all races, began in this period.

***

On one level Fear and Fury is an example of elevated true crime. It begins with the backstories of the victims and the perpetrator, all of whom lived in a New York City riddled with crime and poverty. The teens – Troy Canty, Barry Allen, James Ramseur, and Darrel Cabey – lived in housing projects, went to failing schools, and had a narrow pathway to meaningful work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they turned to smalltime theft. Meanwhile, Goetz came from an upper middle class family and attended boarding school in Switzerland. Having been the victim of a robbery, he took to carrying an illegal firearm. He was also known to use racist language.

Their fateful collision is carefully reconstructed, with Thompson drawing on every scrap of eyewitness evidence. She then describes the lengthy criminal trial, detailing the many twists and turns the case took before landing in front of the jury. Even after the criminal trial ends, the book proceeds to cover the civil trial brought by Cabey against Goetz.

At 450-pages of text, Fear and Fury has a lot of heft. It can be a bit much at times, especially since there is an inevitable amount of repetition. For example, the shooting is first given as a narrative set piece, and later deconstructed in two different trials. Nonetheless, I am almost always in favor of an author providing too much, rather than too little.

One of the ways I judge a nonfiction volume is how often I have to reach for my phone to answer questions left dangling. In Fear and Fury, I never had to touch it.

***

Interwoven into the true crime aspects of Fear and Fury is an incisive look at the consequences of the Reagan Administration. Ronald Reagan is often recalled as an optimists, yet he came into office with a mandate to destroy the last vestiges of the New Deal. The actor-turned-president was not against spending taxpayer dollars – military spending ballooned, as it tends to do in America – he just did not want it spent on things like healthcare or welfare.

During his presidency, Reagan drastically cut taxes for the wealthy, went to war against unions, and dramatically slashed domestic spending. When you look at the numbers regarding wealth inequality, you see that it is during Reagan’s two terms that the chasm between haves and have-nots went from glaring to absolutely ludicrous.

These actions had consequences. A cherished few became much richer. More Americans became poorer. Certain types of crime increased. Reagan’s one neat trick was to both cause these problems and complain about them loudly for political gain. He did this through incitement to racial anger.

***

Any critique of the United States must proceed along the themes of race and class. Race has been extensively – if not satisfactorily – litigated. Class has not. Even the mildest criticisms of capitalism are inevitably shut down with cries of “communism,” usually by people who do not know the difference between Marxism, socialism, and a hole in the ground.

What Thompson does well in Fear and Fury is show how race and class intermingle, with no small part of racism stemming from economic insecurity and fear of competition. Reagan’s policies took a huge pie, carved it up, gave all the pieces to those who were already full, and left everyone else to squabble desperately for the crumbs.

Moreover, race hatred provided a marvelous distraction. The United States of America is the richest nation that ever existed. It is also purportedly a democracy, where the majority rules. A neutral outside observer would make several assumptions about this environment. You would assume, for instance, that the richest nation that ever existed would be able to provide healthcare, affordable housing, and basic human needs to its citizens. You would further suppose that a majority of the voting public would not intentionally screw themselves out of these things.

Understanding the power of these presuppositions, Reagan – and those who followed his footsteps – have tapped into rage. People who are angry cannot focus and do not think straight. This has allowed an endless series of “representative” governments to give to the rich, take from the poor, and subvert any attempts to rectify the situation.

Thompson is unsparing in her portrait of Reagan’s policies. Yet she does not confine herself to party politics. There is blame to go around. Ronald Reagan forced welfare to its knees, but it was William Jefferson Clinton who put a bullet in its head.

***

There are, of course, other echoes to be heard from the Goetz shooting. As Thompson notes, this was just one in a line of infamous incidents, including the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in 2012. Goetz’s notoriety also prefigured the nauseating celebrity of figures such as Kyle Rittenhouse, who became a political analyst after killing two men at the age of seventeen.

One can only marvel at a world in which Bernie Goetz is treated as a hero. He was no Paul Kersey or the Equalizer. When you look at his gawky frame, the oversized glasses, the homely face, all you can think is this guy came from a factory that makes serial killers. Yet for substantial segments of the populace, his bland affect represents justice.

***

We live in an era of wealth inequality so vast that it makes France in 1789 seem like a utopian commune. There are numerous ways to fix this, including a return to historical marginal tax rates. That cannot happen as long as no one can agree on anything.

The important takeaway from Fear and Fury is that this perpetual disagreement is part of the plan. There are legitimate battles to be fought over race, as well as other hot topics such as gender and sexuality. Yet as long as these are framed and reframed with intentional antagonism, things will continue to get better for the few, and worse for the many. The hope of the few is that the many will not recognize it. So far they have been right.

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve often thought about trying to teach like an online course to help people get into history - Enjoying History from a Non-Professional Perspective (yeah, we can workshop the title) - and Thompson’s work fits perfectly within the style. History can be lively and informative, and this book excels at letting the reader get sucked into a phenomenally well told narrative while never straying far from how to see the past as the precursor to our present. Our lives aren’t disconnected, and this book is a great resource for fighting against the myopic views of our uniqueness. This work provides so much depth to how we can view and consume the world around us as story of who we are.

[sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

may this man have a painful trip down to hell.

(also fuck reagan)

[Demetri · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Fear and Fury” and the Subway as Moral Theater: How One 1984 Shooting Became a Blueprint for America’s Politics of Panic
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | January 27th, 2026


~Watercolor Piece by Demetris Papadimitropoulos~

In New York, the subway is a confessional without a priest. It asks you to sit close to strangers and invent a story that explains your proximity. In the 1980s, when the city’s fiscal hangover hardened into a civic mood, those stories began to run on a single fuel: suspicion. Heather Ann Thompson’s “Fear and Fury” takes one of the era’s most overfamiliar flashpoints – Bernhard Goetz’s 1984 shooting of four Black teenagers on a downtown train – and performs the rarest feat in American nonfiction: it makes a myth feel newly dangerous by returning it to the lives it flattened.

Thompson begins by declining the usual center of gravity. Most retellings of the Goetz case start with the gun: the glint of metal in fluorescent light, the jolt of violence that makes a narrative “go.” Thompson starts with what violence interrupts. She introduces Darrell Cabey not as a future headline but as a boy in the South Bronx, shaped by the blunt mathematics of disinvestment and the private heroism of a mother trying to keep a household upright when the city itself seems to tilt. The move is both moral and aesthetic. By restoring the victims’ interiority first, Thompson changes what the reader can tolerate later. When the tabloid machinery begins to grind, you feel the reduction as an additional injury – the second shooting, this one in language.

That language is one of Thompson’s true antagonists. “Fear and Fury” is a book about an event, but it is also a book about the stories that make events usable. In Thompson’s telling, fear is not merely an emotion or an instinct. It is a credential. It grants permission – to preempt, to harm, to be believed. Fury, meanwhile, becomes a civic performance, a proof of seriousness, a substitute for policy. The case matters not only because bullets flew, but because the city watched those bullets and decided what they meant. Thompson is after the interpretive moment: the instant when a violence becomes a parable and a parable becomes governance.


~Watercolor Piece by Demetris Papadimitropoulos~

Her South Bronx chapters are unsparing without being fetishistic. Thompson does not ask the reader to admire “grit” as a retro aesthetic; she asks the reader to understand what grit costs. Public housing appears not as a colorful backdrop but as an engineered environment: buildings allowed to decay, systems that fail at the exact frequency required to drain a family’s bandwidth, stairwells and lots that teach the body a permanent vigilance. Thompson has the historian’s gift for making conditions feel intentional. The borough’s suffering is not weather. It is policy, maintenance choices, budget lines, and a broader cultural willingness to treat certain neighborhoods as expendable.

Yet Thompson refuses the other temptation: turning the South Bronx into a saintly community of pure victims. She acknowledges the violence residents endured from multiple directions – street crime, the drug trade, the everyday risks of a city that had stopped caring about some of its own arteries. Cabey is not presented as spotless, because spotless is another form of stereotype. The book’s point is subtler and more bracing: you do not need perfect victims to have an unjust world. You only need a world that confuses disadvantage with deviance and then calls its confusion “realism.”

Goetz, too, is rendered with a steady refusal of caricature. Thompson does not make him a monster imported from a different moral universe. She makes him a man who found, in the city’s ambient panic, a private ideology that felt like survival. He moves through Manhattan as if the public has failed him, nursing the sense that he is perpetually owed protection and perpetually denied it. Thompson shows how fear can be practiced: rehearsed in the mind, narrated as identity, hardened into a worldview. The book is careful not to conflate explanation with excuse. Goetz is understandable without being exonerated – a distinction American culture often struggles to maintain, especially when the figure at the center is white, male, and willing to brandish grievance as virtue.

If the book stopped there, it would still be valuable: a restorative narrative that returns complexity to the characters most history has treated as props. But Thompson’s ambition is larger, and it is what makes “Fear and Fury” feel like a companion piece to her earlier “Blood in the Water,” another work that treats a single violent episode as a prism through which a broader system can be seen. Thompson understands institutions the way good novelists understand families: as bodies with habits, grudges, and incentives. Police departments, courts, city agencies, newsrooms, and political machines appear not as abstractions but as cultures that reward certain behaviors and punish others.


~Watercolor Piece by Demetris Papadimitropoulos~

This is where the book’s title becomes diagnostic. Thompson traces how fear and fury were amplified in the 1980s, then monetized. Crime coverage becomes an industry, and an industry needs product: simple villains, repeatable story arcs, villains who look the same each night. Thompson shows how animalizing metaphors about Black youth – the rhetoric of packs and predators – did not merely describe a perceived threat but manufactured a social permission structure. The city’s panic became a commodity, and once commodified it began to demand constant replenishment. The result is a feedback loop: fear generates stories, stories justify policing, policing produces new images of threat, threat generates more fear.

The shooting itself is written with a restraint that feels like a moral choice. Thompson knows the seductions of violence on the page. She keeps the scene close enough to feel its suddenness, but she refuses to choreograph it into entertainment. The aftermath, meanwhile, becomes a study in narrative violence: how quickly the victims are put on trial in the court of public imagination, how swiftly nuance is treated as betrayal. Goetz becomes a symbol – the “vigilante” figure the city’s tabloids can sell, the folk hero for those who want the reassurance that someone is finally doing what “the system” refuses to do.

Here Thompson’s cultural intelligence is sharpest. She understands that the Goetz story took hold because it fit a prewritten script: the righteous citizen, the urban savages, the helpless bureaucrats. It was a script Americans already knew from movies like “Death Wish,” from the moral grime and lonely masculinity of “Taxi Driver,” from the broader genre in which the city is a jungle and the white man’s fear is treated as anthropology. Thompson does not overstate the point. She simply shows how easily that aesthetic becomes politics. A fantasy of individual punishment becomes a substitute for structural repair.

The courtroom chapters reveal how law can function as an amplifier rather than a corrective. Thompson is attentive to the way legal language – “reasonable,” “necessary,” “imminent” – depends on shared cultural assumptions about whose fear is credible. The law promises neutrality, but neutrality is only as fair as the social imagination that feeds it. Thompson’s account makes the reader feel how “reasonableness” operates as a kind of racial Rorschach test. What would a “reasonable person” perceive in a subway car? What does threat look like? Who is allowed to claim panic as proof? These are not merely legal questions. They are questions about citizenship.


~Watercolor Piece by Demetris Papadimitropoulos~

Throughout, Thompson keeps returning to the human cost of being turned into an emblem. Darrell Cabey’s paralysis is not treated as a narrative consequence that “raises the stakes.” It is treated as a life – a daily reality that persists after the headlines move on. The book refuses to let the case end where public attention ends. Thompson follows the long afterlife: civil litigation, political transformations, reputational rewrites, the slow institutional digestion of outrage. The reader begins to understand that one of the most insidious forms of power is the ability to outlast other people’s grief.

This refusal of catharsis is one of the book’s most rigorous qualities. Many works of contemporary nonfiction depend on a moral arc that provides release: revelation, condemnation, a gesture toward reform. Thompson is skeptical of that structure, and her skepticism feels earned. She does not offer redemption because redemption would be a lie the system tells itself. The city’s story about Goetz did not resolve with a neat moral consensus; it continued as precedent, as rhetoric, as policy. Thompson’s writing, disciplined and sometimes relentless, mirrors that continuation. The reader may occasionally wish for more silence, more trust that the evidence has already done its work. But the book’s insistence feels like a strategy against a culture that has insisted, for decades, in the opposite direction.

If “Fear and Fury” has a weakness, it is the one that often accompanies moral and archival ambition: a tendency, in places, to press hard on points the narrative has already made with devastating clarity. Thompson wants every wire visible in the circuit. She is determined that the reader not escape into nostalgia or the comforting belief that the past was simply rougher, crazier, less enlightened. At times, that determination can heat the prose. Yet the cumulative effect remains powerful: Thompson’s insistence feels like a rebuttal to the way American culture treats violence as episodic rather than systemic, as isolated rather than infrastructural.

The book’s relevance to the present does not depend on cheap parallels, and Thompson is too serious a historian to play that game. Still, it is impossible to read “Fear and Fury” without feeling the tremor of now. We live in a moment when public safety rhetoric again thrives on compression, when the idea of “reasonable fear” continues to operate as a moral solvent, dissolving accountability with a single phrase. We live amid a media ecosystem that can turn resentment into content and content into power, amid renewed debates about vigilantism, self-defense claims, and the policing of “disorder.” Thompson does not say history repeats. She shows how history trains reflexes, how certain narratives become so familiar they pass for instinct.


~Watercolor Piece by Demetris Papadimitropoulos~

In that sense, “Fear and Fury” belongs in the lineage of books that treat punishment as a political project rather than a natural response. It pairs fruitfully with “Locking Up Our Own,” which complicates the comforting story that only one side built the carceral state; with Elizabeth Hinton’s “From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime,” which traces how social policy mutated into policing; with “The Condemnation of Blackness,” which reveals how crime statistics became racial ideology; with “Ghettoside,” which interrogates the uneven distribution of protection; and, in its city-making scope, with “The Power Broker,” another work that shows how governance remakes daily life while insisting its choices are merely pragmatic. Thompson’s distinctive contribution is her blend of intimate restoration and systemic indictment. She makes the victims human first, then shows how the system profits from making them less than that.

Ultimately, Thompson’s great subject is permission: permission to assume, permission to preempt, permission to punish, permission to confuse fury with virtue. She shows how that permission is conferred not only by laws but by headlines, by political theater, by the steady repetition of stories that teach a public whom to fear and whom to forgive. “Fear and Fury” is not simply a history of an infamous subway shooting. It is a moral history of a civic habit: the habit of treating certain lives as threats before they act, and treating certain fears as wisdom without question.

As both history and literature – for its narrative propulsion, its archival rigor, its refusal to aestheticize harm, and its bracing clarity about how stories become policy – I would rate “Fear and Fury” a 91 out of 100.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who gets to be a victim?

Thompson holds up a mirror to American society and its failure to account for and reckon with white supremacy and racism, particularly with the Bernie Goetz shootings of four unarmed Black youth in 1984 New York.

Highly recommend, and a hearty FUCK YOU to Bernie Goetz.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was 17 years old and living in Canada when Bernhard Goetz shot 4 black teenagers on a NYC subway car. I remember the case, but it turns out that, like so many, what I remember is largely misinformation. This excellent account not only walks the reader through the event itself and the subsequent trials, but also puts all of this into the sociopolitical context of 1980s NYC.

The racism wrapped up in this case is astounding and probably shouldn’t be surprising, and yet I was surprised nonetheless. The author also explores how this instance of so-called vigilante justice has reverberated since (Stand Your Ground laws being just one example). An informative, illuminating read that I found quite discouraging in our current moment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pantheon for allowing me to read an ARC of this title.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard of the Bernard Goetz shootings prior to reading this book, but this was before my time. I had different accounts regarding this case. Heather Ann Thompson shows what happened. She provides biographical information on those involved, what happened prior to the shooting, during the shooting, and the aftermath. One of the positives of this book is I learned new information regarding this case. I did not know, for example, that the four men Goetz shot and their families received vile and hateful messages that contained racial slurs, insults and saying they deserved to be shot. I also did not know the media rushed the story and did not have the facts straight.

The problem I had with this book was it dragged at times. I was looking forward to reading this book, but I found myself skimming. There were interesting pieces of information here and there, but I did not love the book. It was an average read in my opinion.

[Nicole Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not much has changed in 40 years. Excellent writing and research

[PATCHES]

in heather ann thompson we trust

[Derrick Contreras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a thorough and in depth look at the Bernie Goetz case. Truly will make you go crazy as everything unfolds. Heather Ann Thompson is an expert at keeping you on the edge of your toes with suspense. The final section was not needed and really was a let down to an otherwise solid 5 star book. 4.5 stars because of the ending

[Alyssa Russek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely one of the hardest books I have ever read.

Nobody lives in a perfect place untouched by crime, but reading just how drastic it can be is absolutely heart breaking.

I want to start by saying this book doesn't feel like some "white savior" kind of flavorless nonfiction. Thompson writes incredibly well and storylike. Honestly her writing style kept me going at times when I felt the was too heavy.

The subject is incredibly heavy. Thompson gives background to each of the main players. Yes, the boys weren't fully innocent within their lives. In the moment of the crime though, Thompson lays out, they were simply kids trying to survive. Meanwhile Goetz may have had a difficult childhood but it doesn't give him a pass for his actions.

The writing was great. At times though I felt as if I was listening to the same things twice. Thompson laid out the background, then during the court case rehashed it all again. I understand the reasoning for this but at times it felt like, I know this already. What happened was so incredibly violent, having to reread the graphic report of it multiple times didn't really stun me but disgusted me.

There are some things I was surprised Thompson didn't bring up, like how jury pool in Manhattan would also include Westchester, an even more conservative area that isn't even part of the city.
I also wanted to know whay Goetz's family said on his crimes and how they reacted.

Unfortunately I feel that the people who need most to understand the issues laid out in the book either won't read the book or will read parts and say that it's unjustly one sided. I feel as if my politics align with this book so there was no need to deeply persuade me to change my opinions. I am not sure though the book would persuade someone who goes into it with differing opinions though.

I knew going into it the book would mainly focus on the Goetz trial and his crimes but was hoping that she would further go into the ripple effects created. The final section briefly touched what I thought would be a multi chapter section. Most likely the case for this was just not enough space.

Ultimately this is a good book, just not one I personally enjoyed. Reading about the atrocities where I live was hard. I know many of these locations and have been to them myself.

I would certainly read another Thompson book without a question, I just may not read this one again.

[Maryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

very bleak but critically important read. the last bit of the book kind of lost me going through the obama-trump years and i understand why she did it but it didn’t need to be so long. i felt like i wanted to go back to the boys’ stories and know what happened to them but they came at the very end. some parts of the book were repetitive too but overall very enjoyable to listen to

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is undeniably a must read, especially for people of my generation and after who have likely never heard of this incident. We cannot witness and successfully push back against what is happening today without a deep understanding of the history that laid the groundwork for it, and this book lays out a huge piece of that history. As difficult and disheartening it can be to read at points, it’s incredibly important to know the stories of Troy Canty, Barry Allen, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey.

A quote I think highlights the importance of this read: “Bernie Goetz’s decision to take his fury out on the most vulnerable people he encountered had been fueled and vindicated by a racial rage that would continue to percolate. This is what would make it possible for men like George Zimmerman to walk free so easily after killing boys like Trayvon Martin. It is what would allow Kyle Rittenhouse to evade prison and become a folk hero. It would also make Trump’s ascendancy to the White House possible and ensure that his supporters could do anything they wanted to do to keep him in power. And it would guarantee that Daniel Penny did not serve a day in prison for killing Jordan Neely.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Shirley Cabey, Darrell’s mother, and her own mother when they said “what verdict he don’t get down here, he will get when he meet his master upstairs.”

Hell is hot.

[Lucy Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really uneven for me and maybe this was because of the audio format. I found some of the broader historical context to be less engaging and did not need the “how we got to our present moment” chapters at the end…we get it. However I found the trial chapters absolutely riveting, if at times overly detailed (as someone who likes a courtroom drama, this was good for me). Barry Slotkin understood the power of dramatic, “no bullshit” rhetoric and convenient narratives in a way that was chillingly similar to Trump and it’s very easy to see how we got here. I think Thompson does a good job of positioning the environment of New York and the Reagan era decimating of the social safety net as the broader context for this- wild and depressing the lengths that the administration went to to blame Black people as the scapegoat for social ills, and equally depressing how many people fell for (and still fall for) that narrative. The outcome of the trial was disappointing but unfortunately unsurprising, and just goes to show how deeply embedded racism is that we can have an unhinged vigilante gunman with a well documented history of racist behavior openly admit, over and over again, to shooting and wanting to kill 4 boys despite no provocation …and he can still get acquitted. An important read but choppy and uneven, with some definite good spots.

[Amy Kett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thompson is right up there with my literary boyfriend and one true love Patrick Radden Keefe for narrative non-fiction. This book is not easy. It made me very angry like...99% of the time reading it. I am not sure how I managed to be an 80s baby and know nothing about Bernie Goetz besides the name being familiar (white privilege, anyone?) but the more I read the more I was horrified that this was the first time I was hearing the story. Thompson's contextualization skills are through the roof, and this book sucked me in from page 1. The direct line she draws from Goetz's NYC to Trump's reelection is both enlightening and obvious, gross and somehow oddly comforting that the pieces at least fit together in an understandable (though absolutely infuriating) way. Deepening understanding of the machine is a tool and a weapon, and I'm here for Thompson doing the incredibly hard work of parsing the clusterfuck for us. Read it.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars.
A must read.
I had tears in my eyes during many parts of this book. The racism that was accepted and still accepted today is appalling.
Bernie Goetz is a disgusting monster of a human as is Donald Trump.
I’m full of rage and once again want to scream in the streets.

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1968 I was eighteen years old and had been driving for a few months. My mother asked me to take her to visit a friend and when we returned driving north on Ocean Parkway (Brooklyn, NY) in my father’s brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass a pink Grand Prix pulled next to us and ripped an American flag off the radio antenna which my father proudly displayed. We drove about 50 miles per hour, and a hand reached out from the Grand Prix and tried to pull my mother’s arm through the passenger window which was open. By this time, we were going 70 miles per hour, and I jerked the steering wheel into oncoming traffic to get away from our attackers. Four black men in the car laughed their asses off and pulled away. My immediate reaction was to chase after them, but my mother yelled not too as she wrote down their license plate. We drove to the nearest police precinct and were told by a detective to forget the incident ever happened as the police could do nothing even if they caught the men, a judge would not pursue any charges. I was incensed and drove to my girlfriend’s house and went into the courtyard of the school yard across the street and yelled epithets I am now ashamed of. I relate this story as I read Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winning author Heather Ann Thompson’s latest book. FEAR AND FURY: THE REAGAN EIGHTIES, THE BERNIE GOETZ SHOOTINGS, AND THE REBIRTH OF WHITE RAGE as it raises the question of what is the proper response when you consider yourself in danger.
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In today’s world where there are more guns than people, hidden carry laws, laws that seem to justify shooting someone for the slightest offense, and government agents shooting American citizens, it appears that shooting someone who compromises your safety is accepted by large elements of society. We have witnessed a number of examples over the years when people have shot others and got away with it. For example, the 2012 case of Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Florida, shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager. Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was initially not arrested by local police. After significant national outcry, he was arrested and tried for second-degree murder. He was ultimately acquitted by a jury in 2013, a verdict that brought intense scrutiny to Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. Another example occurred in 2004 when Rodney Cox was shot and killed by a Florida homeowner later identified as a FEMA worker, who entered his FEMA trailer after a hurricane. The homeowner fired a warning shot and then shot the man after being placed in a "bear hug". Prosecutors decided the homeowner was acting in self-defense, and he was not prosecuted. This case was a catalyst for the passage of Florida's first "Stand Your Ground" law in 2005, which provides immunity from prosecution if an individual reasonably believes the use of force is necessary. Recently, we had the 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl as Andrew Lester, an 84-year-old white homeowner in Kansas City, shot Yarl, a16-year-old black teenager in the head and then a second time after Yarl mistakenly knocked on his door to pick up his brothers. Lester was initially released without charges, sparking public protests. He was later charged with two counts of first-degree assault and armed criminal action, but the initial lack of charges was widely criticized by organizations like the “Equal Justice Initiative.” Perhaps the most famous example is the 1984 shooting involving Bernard Goetz, a white man in New York City who shot four young Black men on a subway after they approached him and one asked for five dollars. Goetz argued he feared for his safety. He was later acquitted of the most serious charges, including attempted murder, though he was convicted of unlawful weapons possession. The case became a national flashpoint for discussions about race, crime, and self-defense. I could list many more incidents, and it remains an issue today.

For Thompson, the Goetz case is emblematic of the white rage that was simmering in America for decades as media mogul Rupert Murdoch exacerbated the fear and anger of Americans as his newspaper the New York Post reported on the personalities involved as overnight Goetz’s young victims would be characterized as villains, the trial which eventually took place, and Goetz’s acquittal. The book follows the reverberations of the subway shooting and their decades long impact on American society while skillfully recovering the lives of the real victims who many decided that their lives really did not matter.

One of the monograph’s many strengths is the background information that Thompson provides. The author meticulously explains her views based on superb research that includes interviews with many of the participants. She immediately sets the stage for the events that took place on December 22, 1984, by visiting the plight of New York during the 1970s and early 80s. By 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigning for the presidency visited the south Bronx stating, “he hadn’t seen anything like this since London after the blitz.” Since the late 1970s New York had sunk to new lows as newspaper headlines blared that “President Ford Tells New York to Drop Dead” as Washington refused to offer assistance for its budget and debt crisis. Thompson points out that weakening of the American economy throughout the seventies led to less federal funding resulting in services being cut, free college tuition withdrawn, city employees across the bureaucracy fired, and an increase in landlords engaging in arson to collect insurance money for their buildings which they refused to maintain.
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Once Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency he set out to undo as many New Deal socio-economic policies as possible. The Berhard Goetz saga must be seen in the context of the time period in which it took place. By the early 1980s Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, the Civil Rights Movement, and the liberal-progressive legislation of the 1960s was beginning to stoke the anger of working class whites in America. This anger would push many whites to leave the Democratic Party and turn their support to Ronald Reagan whose genius was his ability “to appeal to white self-interest and to exploit racial rage to greater success, convincing some of the most diehard Democratic Party voters that this was in their best interest also.” The result was the “trickle-down theory” of economics resulting in devastating consequences for minorities living in the south Bronx and other poverty stricken areas of the city. This approach to the federal budget – cutting social spending programs disproportionally hit poor urban families of which the four boys that Goetz targeted were members. The spending cuts fueled Reagan’s tax policies allowing the rate for the wealthy at certain levels +to decline from 70% to 28%.

Thompson continues her excellent analysis by explaining that the lack of jobs, declining educational opportunities, and fewer public places to experience enrichment led to underprivileged teenagers hanging out on street corners, gaining easy money from selling drugs to the point that the south Bronx became known as “crack town.” Further exacerbating the situation was the HIV epidemic which was partly fostered by drug addicts exchanging infected needles. This was occurring at a time when health care resources were increasingly unavailable. Soon gang violence would result as the Reagan administration refused to confront the growing AIDS crisis.

Interestingly the 1980s became the center of what Michael Douglas stated in the film “Wall Street,” “that greed was good” enhancing the reputation and lifestyle of white New Yorkers like Donald Trump and his father. The watershed moment for New York also revolved around Rupert Murdoch’s 1976 purchase of the liberal New York Post and turning it into a tabloid that pandered to a disgruntled white audience employing the sensationalist tactics that were successful in Australia and England. With right wing columnists like Patrick Buchanan arguing that the election of Ronald Reagan was a necessity for white voters who feared the rising black crime rate, and that unlawful behavior was endemic to certain neighborhoods.

With this background Thompson creates the ingredients that led to Goetz’s behavior. The author explains the family backgrounds of Goetz and his victims, their belief systems, and the impact of society. For the four boys who were shot, the life and lack of opportunity led them on the path they chose as did Goetz’s anger at what he perceived to be the cause of crime, disease, street beggars, drug dealers, rotting garbage on the streets, and homelessness. After being a mugging victim on January 26, 1981, on Canal Street in lower Manhattan, Goetz decided to travel to Florida to purchase guns, since he could not obtain a license in New York. The more Goetz witnessed his Greenwich Village neighborhood declining his anger was compounded.

Once Thompson provides the reader with the socio-economic climate Goetz resents, she carefully takes the reader through the events on the New York City subway system of December 22, 1984. After providing the details of the shootings she emphatically states that Goetz had no right to shoot Darrell Cabey, James Ramsuel, Barry Allan, and Troy Canty as many of the witnesses in the subway car attested to.

Thompson excels at describing the legal strategies employed by the prosecution and Goetz’s defense as well as the actual trial. As he approached his day in court Goetz came to believe that he represented something very important and that the “public wasn’t going to take it anymore.” He hired Barry Slotnick as his lead attorney, and it would turn out to be an excellent choice. Slotkin had defended well known clients like Meir Kahane, John Gotti, and Manuel Noriega and his brash, uncompromising, and at times nasty approach to defending his clients were part of the reason for his success. As was evident in his defense of Goetz he would think outside of the box and badger witnesses and the judge until he was satisfied with how the case proceeded. The prosecution was led by Greg Waples, an excellent litigator, but more conventional than the opposition.

After a series of legal machinations and dubious claims by lawyers the trial would begin on December 12, 1986. Thompson presents the give and take between witnesses, lawyers, and prosecutors allowing the reader to witness a pseudo boxing match with verbal punches and counter-punches thrown on a daily basis. The author provides many insights pointing out how effective or ineffective the prosecutor and defense carried on. Slotkin in particular was very efficient in confronting one of the victims, James Ramseur, as he took him apart with a series of pointed questions, overwhelming him on a personal level, badgering him in such a manner that he became so angry he refused to cooperate with the court proceedings. Slotnick’s strategy of bullying witnesses was a gamble which in the end paid off. Perhaps Slotnick’s most brilliant move was to get the judge to allow a recreation of the crime scene in court with “large” black Guardian Angels to replicate the four victims, and gaining permission to bring the jury to a subway car at the site of the shootings which would become the key to the final outcome of the trial.

Thompson does a marvelous job dissecting the nuances of the prosecution and defense and correctly concludes that the jurors fundamentally related more to Goetz than they did to the four young men who were shot based on juror statements after the trial. Thompson’s use of juror statements explaining why they acquitted Goetz on the most serious charges is insightful. For the jury at times, it was difficult to ascertain who was on trial for Goetz or his shooting victims. The key to the views of a number of juror’s opinions was Slotnick’s ability to convince them that Darrell Cabey was not shot while seated, but standing in front of Goetz. A number of jurors believed that Goetz’s 1981 mugging was directly impactful as to how he acted on the day of the subway encounter and saw him as a “frightened man.” As to his admission of guilt to the Concord, NH police detectives they rationalized that Goetz was on the run for nine days and was “exhausted and distraught” so his statement could not be accepted as totally rational. Judge Crane’s instructions played a major role in the fact that the jury had to decide if Goetz saw himself as being in mortal danger and whether it was reasonable for him to believe he was. In addition, Slotnick did a better job than Waples. Lastly, Thompson correctly concludes that “in the 1980s climate in New York a gun-wielding loner like Goetz was more sympathetic to these jurors….than four unemployed Black teenage dropouts trying to survive and somehow thrive in the same city and country.”

The author follows up her effective coverage of the trial and appeals applying the same judicious process in presenting the civil litigation period that followed over the succeeding ten years as the Cabey family tried to gain restitution for what happened to Darrell, and Goetz’s strategy to defend himself. It is clear that the period highlighted the emergence of a new era of racialized rage and the role the Goetz trial played in its enhancement. The rape of a white woman in Central Park by five black teenagers would bring about their conviction (which was overturned years later) and labeled them as the Central Park Five, as well as the murder of Yusef Hawkins by a white mob in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn are all emblematic of the period. New York City would turn to Rudy Guliani as mayor in 1993 and along with federal legislation implemented by Bill Clinton, New York cracked down on petty crimes, expanded prison sentences, implemented harsher sentencing all of which can be related to the Goetz trial.

Thompson’s new historical study offers portraits of many characters from the period including Goetz and his victims, Barry Slotnick, William Kuntsler, Rudy Guliani, Curtis Sliwa, Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, and a host of others. She explores how the Reagan Revolution overturned New Deal and Great Society legislation leading to the “greed is good” motto of the 1980s, the conservative approach to crime of the 1990s, and the significant impact of Murdoch’s purchase of the New York Post in addition to the creation of the Fox New Network that today still reinforces the racial and economic views of a significant portion of white America and of course the Trump administration. If there is one aspect of Thompson’s presentation that is not quite supported by the past is that white rage was not endemic to the period of the Goetz trial. It exacerbated a condition that has always existed in American history whether the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, the racial movements dealing with immigration after W.W.I, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the violence it produced, to an administration that panders to white racial rage as witnessed by its “anti-brown and black” immigration and overall economic policies. Overall, Thompson’s meticulous work should be commended as she presents a painful historical theme that she dramatically demonstrates. A theme we are living through today as the news reports on racial crimes and economic inequality each and every day.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most infuriating books I've ever read (complimentary).

It is also one of the strongest works of nonfiction I've ever read. First, to comment on the writing itself: author Heather Ann Thompson does a masterful job of setting up the economic, social, political, and racial forces that preceded the event. Then, with great detail, but still clear and easy to follow, she outlines the event itself and the years of trial that followed. At the end she brings home how the whole saga in turn affected those same economic, social, political, and racial forces until literally today. It is placed perfectly within the larger context. The narrative was filled with tension and kept me hooked, I listened to the audio and I would turn on the setting to stop it at chapter end but then would cancel it because I had to hear what was coming next. I truly enjoyed the style of this book and immediately added her previous work to my TBR.

To speak to the event the book covers, the shooting of four Black teen boys by Bernie Goetz in a subway car in 80s NYC: horrific. At every turn of this story, the most vile, racist decisions were made, and it was relentless. I've never reacted audibly more while reading a book, my frustration was so intense. None of it surprised me, I mean even though this event occurred the year before I was born, I very vividly remember both George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse acting similarly and getting away with it, with both of those events having direct ties to Goetz's trial. Learning more about the media and societal reactions to this case, and how the patterns we see today were arguably started here, was illuminating.

Unfair is much too small of a word to use. Bernie Goetz is so obviously racist, so obviously a liar, so obviously obnoxious, so obviously cruel in how he navigated both the criminal and civil trial processes, so obviously hid assets to avoid the civil consequences, and yet ultimately he only had a consequence of a very short jail sentence on a minor charge? He said LITERALLY ON TAPE that he would have kept shooting had be more bullets and he wanted to "gouge out one of the guys' eyes out with my keys afterwards," but was acquitted. WHAT??? He is still unrepentant and said recently that he committed a "public service". I cannot even begin to convey the rage that makes me feel. The lives of Barry, Troy, Darrell, and James were incontrovertibly altered in a million different negative ways, and their assailant was cheered on by the public. It's so gross. So gross.

I don't even know if I actually recommend this book because it is so maddening. Of course I do recommend it as an excellent resource on how we got to where we are today, and as an example of great nonfiction. But just know, it will make you furious. I'm not left with hope after finishing it, because it becomes more and more clear to me that all of our systems are so deeply broken in ways that I don't think are fixable. Even though the arc has bent towards justice in the very biggest zoomed out picture, we are in such a decline at this present moment and it is so sad.

Wow this is my darkest 5 star review ever I do believe lol. If you like narrative nonfiction, are interested in true crime and the legal system, or just want a clearer undertanding of the current political landscape, I do for sure recommend Fear and Fury. Just don't say I didn't warn you!

“These details were not enough to convict Bernie Goetz because in 1980s New York, even a strange, antisocial, gun-wielding loner like Goetz was more sympathetic to these jurors—a slice of mainstream New York and America both—than four unemployed Black teenage dropouts trying to survive and somehow thrive in that same city and country. Ultimately, this jury could not see Goetz as a vigilante or a predator because they did not see the young Black people he had shot as victims.”

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was riveting. Thompson has meticulously researched an episode in history that I had not known about, presented it in an engaging manner, and situated it within historical threads leading all the way to the present. Fans of narrative nonfiction and courtroom drama will gulp this one up.

FEAR AND FURY reports on the Bernie Goetz shootings of four Black teenagers on the NYC subway in December 1984, a shocking act of individual vigilantism that exposed the racial attitudes of much of the nation at the time. It should have been an open-and-shut case on Goetz’s unlawful possession of a weapon and unreasonably violent response to being approached by the panhandling teens. Instead, it provoked a public response, along deep racial lines, that Goetz’s actions were “justified” due to the virulent crime that was occurring in NYC at the time.

Thompson begins by giving us background about Goetz and the teens’ backgrounds, then describes the events of that fateful December afternoon in tense chapters. She gives equal time to the court procedures that followed, recounting nearly line by line what the lawyers, witnesses, and jurors said. Even readers who don’t usually read courtroom accounts will find Thompson’s writing here engaging.

Thompson also makes the unique choice of bracketing her narrative with overviews of key US economic and political events both preceding the Bernie Goetz shootings and up until the present day. While initially I was a bit wary of this choice—especially at the beginning, when she writes about Reagan’s neoliberal policies and how they stripped away social support services, benefited the rich, and directly led to increased crime rates—by the end of the book I had full respect for Thompson’s choice.

Sometimes, historical accounts read as if they’ve come from “out of time,” disconnected to where we are now. FEAR AND FURY, though, directly links the Bernie Goetz shootings and trials to today’s climate. Thompson shows how Goetz is the predecessor to today’s hate-filled racial rhetoric—in particular how Trumpian politicians and media figures harness the legitimate rage of poor whites at their lives having been made more difficult by bipartisan politicians and billionaires and turn it against people of color. She also links Goetz with the pattern of individualist vigilantism (usually by young white men labeled “mentally ill” by society) as a response to an increasingly uncaring and anti-communal society. I was very impressed.

With the engaging narrative of Patrick Radden Keefe and the social impact of Rebecca Nagle (By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land), FEAR AND FURY is a phenomenal achievement. Definitely one of the best 2026 nonfiction releases that I’ve read this year.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who lived during this time [I was in high school when the shooting happened ] and remembers the shooting and its aftermath [I lived in NY when the civil trial happened, and it was in the news all the time, and the paper I was reading definitely looked at the whole story differently than the mainstream media and that was refreshing ], this filled in MANY of the holess of the story that the mainstream media either missed *OR* refused to air/write about [I had a teacher {that I am forever grateful for} that made us research this shooting, looking for the views that opposed the MSM, and because of this, I never thought that Goetz was the benevolent vigilante out to "save" the world, and was indeed VERY guilty ] and helped me understand this whole time-frame better [I learned stuff about Guliani, who I had always thought had been rather good for NYC when he was Mayor; boy was I wrong - he DID do good things, but the bad will always outweigh that ], and I believe that it will 100% do that for you too.

Well-written and deeply researched, this book covers a lot of time and characters [and should be absorbed slowly, especially if you have no previous knowledge of the events that happen in this book ], but it is a much needed, important read that will really stay with you and make you question everything you've ever believed and just what is truth, what is lies, and what the media really tells us.

Absolutely brilliant. This is a much read book for everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley, Heather Ann Thompson, and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor/Pantheon for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Paulette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fear and Fury is exactly how I felt reading this. It’s so upsetting, it’s so infuriating.

Heather Ann Thompson is absolutely fantastic at writing and weaving how systematic changes and white supremacy led to a moment like this happening, and how certain figures benefited from it. Like, what do you mean Rupert Murdoch got a waiver from Mario Cuomo to rebuy The New York Post, even though the FCC prohibited cross-ownership in the media, and now this shit is so normalized it doesn’t even read as odd?


Those four teenage boys. They were so utterly failed at every point from the moment that awful man saw them. Exploited, manipulated, and traumatized for the rest of their lives. I have a list of people who will remain on my shit list forever.

Now, I had heard that the third act isn’t as strong, and I had to agree, unfortunately. I don’t quite think Thompson was able to fully contend with the rise of white rage, because a)she skipped around gun ownership rising in the 90s/00s/10s, Ruby Ridge/Oklahoma City bombings etc., and b)we’re still living through this fucking dictatorship, and the normalization of terrible violence that’s a daily occurrence. I just felt like it could have been its own book, because after several chapters of this, I couldn’t help but lose focus on the fates of Troy, Barry, James, and Darrell.

(Also, seeing my favorite books mentioned in the notes always makes me extra happy, because I definitely found myself thinking about those books while reading this one.)

[Jacob Hudgins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A powerful, shocking, and tragic story marred by a severely flawed and biased retelling.

Goetz’s story is fascinating as a commentary on racial resentment, vigilantism, justice system bias, and the power of media narratives to shape public perceptions. The more details Thompson uncovers about the specifics of the case, the more shocking it becomes that he is acquitted. The real power is the link to Kyle Rittenhouse and Daniel Penny, both of whom were strangely lionized by right wing political figures for vigilante actions. Terrifyingly, this story is not a one-off.

However, Thompson’s book makes no effort at political or historical neutrality. Though the facts of the case are so shocking that they speak for themselves, Thompson is clearly rooting for the four victims, apologizing for their flaws and attempting to build sympathy. To set historical context, Thompson must decry all of Reagan‘s and local leaders’ conservative policies, at one point saying that conservative economic policies “betrayed the people of New York.” When connecting the story to future acts of vigilantism, she cannot contain her rage at the Trump administration and Fox News. It makes the book read less like a historical record and much more like an angry diatribe directed at right-wing politicians. I have my frustrations with right-wing politicians too, but I do not believe that every miscarriage of justice is due solely to them.

[Serena · Rating 5 out of 5]

tldr: engaging explanation of a horrible criminal law case. the integration of social + cultural factors that led to and crafted the events within the book were thought-provoking and grounded in research. absolutely recommend to anyone who is in law school/going to law school/people interested in crime podcasts/people who like history?

longer thoughts: as an alum of the history dept of the university of michigan, I had to read this. And I was not at all disappointed. Heather ann Thompson truly makes this non-fiction seem like fiction. It is well written, immersive, and heartfelt. There were many times that I gasped, laughed, and even nearly cried. The narrative is thoughtful and respectful, and a really interesting view of life in 1980s NYC. as a law student, I also found this to be just the right amount of detail on legal procedure. heather got to the most important points of the law without overcomplicating it, and I think it is understandable to any layman (but was still super interesting to me)! My only critique for the whole story was that the final part (re white rage in modern day) and random add ons about Donald trump weren’t necessary. I recognize this book might be preparing for longevity (and in 50 years reading that chapter might be an interesting through line), but right now it felt disconnected and distracting from a truly dynamic story already. otherwise, its as really great and im so happy I read it.

[Ben Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmm!!! This delivers very well in terms of digesting and portraying the Goetz shootings, the ensuing trials, and their aftermath.

What it does less well is tie into its title promise of the Reagan 80s and the “Rebirth of White Rage.” Aside from some establishing context and facts early on in chapters, the bulk of the book is concerned with the Goetz part, which again it does well and is informative.

Then for the last 50 pages we get a rapid-fire stroll through the last 30 years of American politics. After the incredibly detailed saga of the trials (truly we hear about EVERY prosecution and defense witness in EVERY trial), this seems trite and tied on, a thesis in search of a story. The connection to the Jordan Neely/Daniel Penny case is the most potent, but gets about three pages in this late-book sprint. Maybe it’s in the editing? Did we need interludes to discuss what was happening with politics/the zeitgeist rather than saving it all for the end? Does this book suffer from Thompson not (as far as I can tell) interviewing Goetz himself?

I suspect my disconnect is from Thompson’s explicit desire in this book to try to explain Trump 2.0. Further, I suspect there is a fallacy in the title, or Thompson’s goal, itself.

White rage did not experience a “rebirth” in this country from Bernie “I’m a huge squirrel-feeding-weed-selling-avowed-racist loser” Goetz — it’s always been simmering below the surface, in search of an outlet.

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really heartbreaking book that clearly demonstrates how 40+ years of largely Republican policies have so severely damaged our country. It's also the context for an in-depth narrative about Bernhard Goetz, who tried to murder four black teenagers in 1984 and, instead of going to prison for decades, became a folk hero to many and in some ways the personification of "white rage," the illogical blaming of society's ills on the victims, rather than the villains. The politicians who oversaw the terrible transfer of so much wealth in this country from the lower and middle classes to the 1% have destroyed so much of the New Deal social safety net that allowed this country to boom in the postwar era. Mostly Republicans, but Bill Clinton did his share of damage as well.

[Kali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m now at the age where the history books are about the decades when I was a child and remember these things in real time. While, as a child, I didn’t have the vocabulary or political understanding adults (presumably) would have had, I was very aware of hard times within my family and the rising racial anger within the broader community. This case was an excellent example around which to center the exploration of this topic.

Reading the outline of how the political policies and bad outcomes unfolded only cements my perpetual disappointment in humanity. It’s one of those books that’s really good, but you will be upset about the injustice of it all. It also makes you realize how far we’ve regressed. *sigh*

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so odd that two books about Bernie Goetz's shootings of four teenagers on a NYC subway in 1984 were released in the same month. I read both, and if you only care to read one, Heather Ann Thompson's book is the way to go. It's very well-researched, and simply quoting from transcripts of the trial is enough to stir the reader's emotions. A very unpleasant situation all-around, and the last section was even more unpleasant (not the author's fault that we live in terrible times) though it did end on a hopeful note. My heart goes out to the real victims: Darrell Cabey, Troy Canty, Barry Allen, and James Ramseur, and the many others who have suffered from the evil of vigilantism.

[Stephloca · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, thank you to Pantheon and NetGally for the ARC of such an enlightening book. I had never heard of this shooting prior to reading the blurb about this book. This book is meticulously researched regarding the shooting, the perpetrator, its victims and the subsequent trials. But I was particulary impressed by the intersectionality of the author's explanations. There is ample commentary of how systemic injustice and poor economic agendas, like trickle down economics, contributed to the shooting and the social climate. The author also did a great job explaining how conservative media and its growth, fueled by Rupert Murdoch, created both the political and social climate around the time of the shooting and the climate today. I especially appreciated how the author traces the connection between white rage in the 80s and Donald Trumps's current presidency and policies. My only critique is that the title should not refer to the "Rebirth" of white rage, because reading this book begs the question- when did white rage ever die?

[Mackenzie Rodgers · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5.

Compulsively readable narrative that is heartbreaking and infuriating the entire way through. Thompson gives you no breaks, no reprieve, and no silver linings. For any person wondering, “how tf did we get here?”, this book has a big piece of the puzzle. I’m so glad I read this, despite it being very difficult (mentally & emotionally) to get through. May we all have the courage, the endurance, and the heart to still hope for and build a better world.

As hopeless as most of this book feels, it left me feeling invigorated to stay involved in my local community, and to do more.

[Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I remember all of these events and reading about them now, so many years later, makes me wonder how people ever could have thought that way. And then I’m reminded they still do. This book clearly helps outline how the economic gaps in our society were blown wide and far by Regan and we’re still paying the price. Deeply moving.