Robert Scheer has built a reputation for strong social and political writing over the past half-century. While the bulk of his writing has been for newspapers, magazines and websites, he has written or co-authored multiple bestselling books.
They Know Everything About You: How Data Collecting Corporations & Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy
with Sara Beladi
2015 / The information revolution has exposed much of the world’s population to a boundless world of universally shared information. But it has also stripped both passive and active participants of their every shred of privacy in ways most don’t comprehend. The technology of surveillance, Scheer warns, represents an existential threat to the liberation of the human spirit.
The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street
with Christopher Scheer
2010 / In The Great American Stickup, Scheer uncovers the hidden story behind one of the greatest financial crimes of our time: the Wall Street financial crash of 2008 and the consequent global recession. He begins in 1980s Washington, D.C., a veritable crime scene, where the captains of the finance industry, their lobbyists and allies among leading politicians destroyed an American regulatory system that had been functioning effectively since the era of the New Deal.
The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened American
2008 / The culmination of a respected journalist’s efforts to change the terms of debate on American foreign policy. At a time when many are exploiting fears of terrorist attacks and only a few national leaders are willing to advocate cuts in defense spending, nuclear disarmament, and restrained use of American force, Robert Scheer has written a manifesto for enlightened reform.
Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton —and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush
2006 / Scheer’s interviews with and profiles of US presidents have shaped journalism history. Scheer developed close journalistic relationships with Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush, and his reporting on them had a tangible impact on national debate. In Playing President, he offers an unparalleled insight into the presidential mind, analyzing administrations from Nixon to George W. Bush, offering insights that will surprise the reader—particularly those with rigid preconceptions about the decision-making processes of our leaders.
The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq
co-author with Christopher Scheer & Lakshmi Chaudhry
2003 / The comprehensive source on the administration’s campaign of disinformation before, during, and after the second Gulf War. From the careful linking of Saddam Hussein with Al Qaeda, to the WMD canard, to the September 2003 damage-control sideshow, AlterNet.org’s Christopher Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry team up with renowned journalist Robert Scheer to take the full measure of official deception. They not only lied, the authors conclude; the pattern of obfuscation, misstatement, and half-retraction amounted to a devious entrapment of the American people.