Editor:

Thank you for publishing Shane C. Brinton’s review of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (Aug. 7). The most important point Brinton makes is at the very end: “Klein hasn’t discovered something new so much as she has explained how a very old strategy is manifesting itself in even more atrocious ways.”

I had a similar thought reading Naomi Wolf’s End of America (see Journal book review, Oct. 25, 2007), and John Perkins’ Confessions of An Economic Hitman. Historical patterns, or echoes, are revealed through myriad examples in each of these books, which all lay bare what we seem to be collectively trying to deny.

But what’s that old saying about if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? Around the world and throughout time, this is what has been called fascism. I’m not discovering anything new, either -- just reminding my good American neighbors that it can happen here and it is.

— Dave Berman, Eureka