I sort of worry that owning this book has put me on a watch list.
This was a pretty good read, a political thriller for the left, a cautionary tale, a bit didactic.
I liked it. It scared and entertained me. While I enjoyed the read I can't help but feel that Stuart Archer Cohen missed an opportunity to write a really great story here, instead of a good one. still, I couldn't put it down and know that the characters will be with me for a long time. And I think the world the author imagined is on the near horizon.
I don't know if it was just the review copy but it needed a better proof-reader. ( )

I found the plot extremely interesting and plausible, but the writing style was a bit awkward and distracted from the story. ( )

Not so good. Never really took off for me. Interesting ideas but uninspired writing. ( )

I also received this book through Early Reviewers. The plot sounded very intriguing, and because the location is close to home, I thought I could dive in and connect with the story. Unfortunately the writing felt awkward from the opening, but maybe that was the point? After getting used to the writing voice the story seems to flow, but still felt somewhat awkward.

Overall the story is interesting, and the plot idea is frightening because it's not too far from reality, but the writing falls short and is only "okay." The story failed to draw me, the reader, into this potentially great story of a real and not to distant future. ( )

As a political thriller, the Army of the Republic is highly successful. But as a novel of political ideas that aims to understand and perhaps even influence what the author sees as a crisis of democracy in the contemporary United States , the novel is hindered (as most books in this genre are) by a limited political perspective – in this case a left-leaning antipathy to neo-liberal global economics. Readers who do not share the author’s values and political commitments are not likely to find its political premises persuasive, though they will still enjoy it is as a well-crafted and suspenseful read. Readers concerned about the rise of private, corporate power will see in this book a chilling and provocative exploration of some of their worst nightmares.

The book is set against a near-future backdrop of some of the most divisive social and political developments in the United States since the 1980s – globalization, privatization of utilities and public resources, the domination of the federal government by corporate interests, the erosion of rights to express political dissent in the wake of paranoia created by terrorist attacks, the growth of private paramilitary security forces like Blackwater, and elections undermined by easily manipulated electronic balloting. In this context, Cohen sees the struggle of three forces trying to determine the future of America: the government and its corporate overseers, political organizations engaged in nonviolent mass protest and civil disobedience, and a network of revolutionaries willing to employ any means necessary to save the republic.

The story unfolds through the narration of three compelling characters who represent each of these forces – James Sands, a billionaire CEO whose influence in government has him poised to control the water supply of the entire Pacific Northwest; Emily Cortright, a young, beautiful, idealistic but savvy leader in a coalition of civil, religious and labor groups who oppose Sands and the larger program of privatization and neo-liberal global economic policy; and Lando, an articulate and charismatic revolutionary who trying to hold together a loose network of guerillas whose opposition to the Regime runs the gamut from rightwing militia to leftwing radicals. Cohen persuasively depicts the strategic and tactical machinations of each of these characters, and the narrative becomes irresistible as the three lives and become surprisingly and dangerously intertwined, culminating in an explosive mass political demonstration reminiscent of the 1999 Seattle WTO protests.

Many readers will perhaps feel that this book has missed its moment, and this may explain why it has not drawn more attention and a wider readership. Published in the fall of 2008, it captures perfectly the fear that many Americans ranging from the middle to the left felt about the direction of America in the Bush administrations second term. But in the wake of Obama’s resounding victory and the conventional wisdom that his administration represents a sharp turn to the left, the book’s tagline – “Read It Now – While It’s Still Fiction” – may seem a quaint throwback to a past best forgotten.

But the novel plays on much deeper social and political conflicts, and the Obama administration has so far done little that would convince either Lando or Cortright to abandon their dissent from American economic, social and foreign policy – though they would no doubt employ a much different set of tactics in the wake of the 2008 election. If Cohen is correct that the dominance of neo-liberal economics and heightened corporate power profoundly threatens democratic values and institutions – and I think he is – then his fiction should still arouse our interest and fear. ( )