COVID WARS

Kirkus Reviews

Gruner's approach is dispassionate, allowing the massive death toll and preventable mistakes to speak for themselves. Responsibility is placed on political leaders, media, entertainment figures, and individual citizens without Gruner ever taking an accusatory tone; the stark and undeniable numbers do the job.

To call the book thorough would be an understatement . . . A Covid-19 reference as comprehensive as it is devastating.

Booklife | Publishers Weekly

Gruner's analysis of data is transparent and persuasive. While he explores the history of virology and pandemics and other nations' responses to Covid, what is perhaps most powerful here is revisiting, in Gruner's precise and unheated reporting, the feeling of a nation spinning out of control, especially as overwhelming and contradictory conspiracy theories, accusations, and misinformation proliferated.

A clear-eyed history of America's bitterly divided response to Covid.

Lily Andrews | Reader Views

Not only does Covid Wars document the diverse responses from the public, governments, and the World Health Organization, it also bluntly exposes the dishonest people and opportunists who used the crisis to profit while promoting unsubstantiated notions.

Using verified facts and information that are missing from many works on the subject, Covid Wars is undoubtedly a historian's companion for the reference of the era.

U.S. Review of Books

The author's clear and concise writing style is a refreshing and engaging deviation from the stuffy, academic tone of most historical nonfiction . . . This book will help future historians grasp the complexity of the public health policies, socioeconomics, and partisan politics that dominated America's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gruner paints a vivid picture of the widespread pandemonium that the COVID-19 outbreak wreaked upon the American people.