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Trump: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention Kindle Edition

4.1 out of 5 stars 152

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The essential book to understanding Donald Trump as a businessman and leader—and how the biggest deal of his life went down. 

Now, Barrett's classic book is back in print for the first time in years and with an introduction about Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Donald Trump claims that his success as a “self-made” businessman and real estate developer proves that he will make an effective president, but this devastating investigative account by legendary reporter Wayne Barrett proves otherwise. Back in print for the first time in years, Barrett’s seminal book reveals how Trump put together the biggest deal of his life—Trump Tower—through manipulation and deceit; how he worked with questionable characters from the mafia and city politics; and how it all nearly came crashing down. Here is a vivid and inglorious portrait of the man who wants now to be the most powerful man in the world.

In 
Trump: The Greatest Show in the World—The Deals, the Downfall, the Reinvention, Barrett unravels the myth and reveals the truth behind the mogul’s wheelings and dealings. After decades covering him, few reporters know Trump as Barrett does. Instead of the canny businessman that Trump claims in his own books, Barrett explores how Trump exploited his father’s banking and political connections to finance and grease his first major deals. Barrett’s investigative biography takes us from the days of Donald’s lonely youth to his brash entry into the real estate market, and to the back room deals behind his New York, Atlantic City and Florida projects.

Most compellingly Barrett paints an intimate portrait of Trump himself, a man driven by bravado, obsessive self-regard, and an anxious ruthlessness to subdue his rivals and seduce anyone with the power to aid his empire. We see him head to head with an opponent as powerful as Pete Rozelle, ingratiating himself with the brooding governor on the Hudson, and fueling the Drexel engine driven by Michael Milken with hundreds of millions in fees—paid, ironically, by gaming companies to fend off Trump takeovers. We explore his complicated emotional and business relationship with his first wife, Ivana, and the use he planned to make of his mistress—and later, his second wife—Marla Maples as a “southern strategy” in his then contemplated presidential campaign. With interviews with scores of adversaries and former colleagues, we are given a privileged look at Trump the businessman in action—reckless as often as he is brilliant, reliant on threats as much as on charm, and ultimately a cautionary tale: is this the man we want to lead the world?

PRAISE FOR TRUMP:

Trump is a withering portrait of the most self-mythologized and promoted businessman of our era, an exhaustively researched and long-overdue antidote to Trump’s own books. It is a penetrating portrait of the age that spawned him and the many who aided and abetted his rise. Trump seems destined to be the definitive account of how Trump got ahead and why he fell. It is a sad story, with important lessons for us all.” —James B. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Den of Thieves 

“Donald Trump surprises us again. Wayne Barrett’s 
Trump is a fresh, detailed, and vivid account of the tangled connections of money, politics, and power in our times.” —Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The preeminent journalist on Donald Trump."

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

"Nobody has written as many informed and perceptive stories about Trump as investigative reporter Wayne Barrett."

The National Memo

"
Trump is a withering portrait of the most self-mythologized and promoted businessman of our era, an exhaustively researched and long-overdue antidote to Trump's own books."

James B. Stewart, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Den of Thieves

"Donald Trump surprises us again. Wayne Barrett's
Trump is a fresh, detailed, and vivid account of the tangled connections of money, politics, and power in our times."

Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy

"[T]he gold standard account of Trump's first act in real estate and business."

Dara Lind, Vox.com

About the Author

Wayne Barrett is an investigative reporter who's written about New York for more than four decades and did the first major pieces on Donald Trump in the 1970s. A senior editor at the Village Voice until 2010, he's also written for The Daily Beast, New York magazine, The Nation, and NY Daily News. His books include City for Sale, Rudy!: An Investigative Biography, and Grand Illusion, which collectively covered the Koch through the Giuliani administrations. The New York Times called him "the master of chronicling the underbelly of New York City politics."

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01ECUXPIM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Regan Arts. (April 26, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 26, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1186 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 651 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 152

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Wayne Barrett
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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
152 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2017
Great book, learning a lot. Reminds me of Caro's The Power Broker. Also makes it glaringly clear that Trump's supporters don't care about this background, and that Trump's haters are having heart attacks about all of these crazy happenings. This kind of politics is tough to stomach, but I am just thinking about the grit Barrett had to stay with this beat year after year.
5 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2016
Interesting read. I am glad I have read this now. It shed a lot of light on many unanswered questions about Mr. Trump's business dealings. For all of the media attention that has been devoted to him, though, what do we really know about Donald Trump, apart from what he has carefully contrived to foster the myth of a self-made financial genius? Barrett's investigation of these deals provides not only a fascinating chronicle of Trump's own suspect business practices, but also a hair-raising account of the workings of power brokers in the heady and heedless money culture of the 1980s. Here is a detailed portrait of the forces that made a Donald Trump possible: the banks that advanced him staggering loans, at times based on misleading information; Trump family associations with mob-connected figures; and compromising alliances with governors, mayors, and perhaps his most powerful benefactor of all, the rogue lawyer Roy Cohn.
60 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2021
Some time back in the late 1970s, author Barrett wrote in the Village Voice that he had got access to an NYC municipal office to review files about Donald Trump's recent dealings in city real estate. He had told no one he was going there; he thought the only person that knew he was there was the lady that had directed him to that office.

The single phone in the room rang, & a curious Barrett answered. "This is Donald Trump. I heard you're writing a book about me!"

Barrett later wrote that Trump did have some sixth sense (& a la Oscar Levant, Trump evidently lacked the other five) of what any opposition to him was doing & often before they it did it. But as harsh & incisive as The Greatest Show is, unlike so many would-be biographers, Barrett was never sued by Trump; Trump only offered Barrett a better apartment. Trump just could not comprehend why Barrett would want to live in Brownsville Brooklyn.

The latter move turns out to be maybe the real "secret" to Trump's "success": Always try to co-opt the opposition. Barrett's book, first published in 1999, when Trump was jockeying for a pole position in the Reform Party, is replete with accounts of Trump doing just that: Co-opting the opposition. Which turned out to have few but always important occasions for success. Trump was incapable of the faintest effort to understand an opposition: He was completely lost in the stuffy world of Upper West Side Manhattan community activism.

Barrett's is the fullest fountain of info on Trump. & If his questionable early dealings & later extraordinary losses remain unknown or no longer matter to Trump opponents & supporters, we are left with this still-shining legacy: Trump "was child of the moment, with neither a respect for the past nor an instinct for the future. All he knew was what he needed right then."
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2022
The author give lots of information on others who deal with Trump, people we don't care about and never will so getting to the "meat" is a challenge at times.
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2020
Gives a detailed account of Donald Trump's rise as a fast talking, wheeler dealer in the '70's, '80's to early '90's, and his divorce from his first wife. Trump is a person who is driven to be the master of Real Estate Development in NYC. He is a cutthroat manipulator who bends ALL the rules to get what he wants. He doesn't always get all he wants, but he will make everyone's life miserable in his quest to get it. He is a completely amoral person who will lie, backstab, and cheat to force his will on others. He has no problem playing City Politicians against one another, scamming Bankers, property owners, tenants, or anyone else to get what he wants. It's a picture of a man with giant ego, no morals, and who is willing to take risk that no sane person would even consider. It's not a pretty picture.
8 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2018
I already hated him, but the way the novel was written was confusing to read.
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2017
I thought I knew a lot about TRUMP, but this book gives you even more details, that 'the malicious FAKE media' failed to mention in their articles about him. This would be great if TRUMP's fan base actually read this, but they won't. It's an easy read, starts out and continues to capture your attention the entire book.
2 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2016
Barrett very detailed in his description of the antics of the young Donald Trump. A great exposition of a very little man.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Jeffb
5.0 out of 5 stars Trumptruth
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2018
Really useful read. Doesn’t bury Trump under avalanche of diatribe. Puts his lunacies into perspective, gives his rationale a grounding in his background. Amazing that not more of his fans and critics haven’t based their critiques/adoration on what this book reveals. Fantastically well researched
Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Show sul ciglio del precipizio
Reviewed in Italy on March 5, 2017
Molti ritengono, per primi quelli che hanno votato per lui, che un grande impresario possa essere un grande presidente. Non è vero: il primo sa sfruttare le occasioni, il secondo deve avere onestà intellettuale e visione strategica.
Accompagnando la vita impresariale di Trump, Barrett ci dice che Trump è uno spregiudicato, se non francamente immorale, uomo d'affari, che non arretra innanzi all'opportunità dele cattive compagnie e del litigio nei tribunali. Ha la forza terribile del prepotente focalizzato sui propri interessi e sulla propria vanità.
Terribile pensare che abbia il dito sul grilletto nucleare.
V. J.
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 26, 2017
very well written
Mr. Charles J. Calderone
1.0 out of 5 stars One Star
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 25, 2017
Terrible rambunctious rambling about a psychopathic egomaniac ,who now happens to be president of the USA.
One person found this helpful
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