Torture. Secret prisons. Wiretaps on Americans. Even with a new president in the White House, daily headlines contain disturbing revelations about how the United States conducts itself in the “war on terror.” While other books have analyzed specific, shocking issues about the war on terror, there is a surprising disconnect in them: they don’t connect the actions of the George W. Bush administration to those of previous administrations. State Power and Democracy is the first to do that. It shows that the Bush police state didn’t commence when Bush was inaugurated. It proves, instead, that the seeds of an American police state can be traced all the way back to the founding of the republic.