Fear and loathing still burns through in the search for truth

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi celebrates the 40th anniversary of Hunter S Thompson’s classic account of the campaign trail for the US presidential election in 1972

I DOUBT any book means more to a single professional sect than Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 means to political journalists.

It’s been read and reread by practically every living reporter, and you can still spot the familiar red (it was red back then) cover of Fear and Loathing ’72 poking out of the duffel bags of the reporters sent to follow the likes of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Barack Obama on the journalistic Siberia known as the Campaign Trail.