The approach he takes differs greatly from mine. Where in considering the sensibility of the books what was uppermost in my mind were the events of the day, and the larger tendency of America's political life (the ascent of "post-Vietnam" right-wing backlash, the neoliberal and neoconservative ascendancies that benefited so much from them, the "Second Cold War"), Pille's stress is more cultural and generational--examining Clancy's world view as that of a "boomer dad," for whom football and lawn-mowing are hugely important signifiers. Some of it works well, some less so. (Pille is entirely right when he remarks how wrong Clancy was about the effects that foreign attacks on U.S. soil would have on American political life, but has little to say about why Clancy was so wrong--and I think the cultural politics-minded use of the "boomer dad" world-view as a lens is simply less conducive to that.) Still, it is on the whole an interesting and worthwhile reader for anyone up for a critical take on the books.
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