An ersatz Boston Brahmin

The ‘campaign biography’ has become a familiar enough phenomenon in any American presidential year. So it should be said straight away that this book, with the slightly teasing adjective in its subtitle, is in no way representative of that genre. Far from being a dazzling encomium of the qualities of the Democratic candidate in this autumn’s presidential election, it offers a cool (and at times almost chilling) assessment of the various episodes that have gone into the making of the career of the present junior senator from Massachusetts.