To his crit­ics, Don­ald Trump is an impul­sive, undis­ci­plined, crack­pot who acci­den­tal­ly lucked into the pres­i­den­cy. But in The Method to the Mad­ness, reporters Allen Salkin and Aaron Short reveal that noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. This objec­tive, non­par­ti­san, oral his­to­ry shows that Trump had care­ful­ly planned his bid for the pres­i­den­cy since he launched what many con­sid­ered to be a joke can­di­da­cy in 1999. Between 2000 and 2015, when he announced his can­di­da­cy in the lob­by of Trump Tow­er, he was able to iden­ti­fy an unserved polit­i­cal con­stituen­cy, hone a per­sua­sive mes­sage that appealed to their needs, and deliv­er it effec­tive­ly, despite intense media oppo­si­tion. Through can­did con­ver­sa­tions with more than 100 sub­jects close to the Pres­i­dent, Salkin and Short make the case that Don­ald Trump’s osten­si­bly errat­ic approach to pol­i­tics is con­sis­tent with his care­ful­ly honed per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al style of infor­ma­tion gath­er­ing opin­ion, seed-plant­i­ng, and con­clu­sion shar­ing. His busi­ness, media, and polit­i­cal deal­ings from this era serve as a guide for under­stand­ing the man his mind­set and his every action. The Method to the Mad­ness is an acces­si­ble and unbi­ased oral his­to­ry that brings read­ers into the pri­vate rooms where deci­sions are made, con­fi­dences are bro­ken, strong words fly, and not all eye-wit­ness­es see the same scene in quite the same way.