Onnesha Roychoudhuri, “The Marginalized Majorit...
The Marginalized Majority: Claiming Our Power in a Post-Truth America (Melville House, 2018) offers a roadmap to reeling progressives, delivers a searing critique of cynical pragmatism and defends identity politics as a galvanizing force for positive s...
39 min
1352
Roger Biles, “Mayor Harold Washington: Champion...
Harold Washington’s election as mayor of Chicago in 1983 sent a shockwave through the politics of America’s third largest city, one that reverberated for decades afterward. Yet as Roger Biles describes in his book Mayor Harold Washington: Champion of R...
61 min
1353
Paula Serafini, “Performance Action: The Politi...
How can art change the world? In Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism (Routledge, 2018), Paula Serafini, a Research Associate at the University of Leicester’s CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies,
37 min
1354
Jeremi Suri, “Impossible Presidency: The Rise a...
The office of the president in the United States is one of the most visible institutions not just in its own country, but around the world as well. The expectations that the office and officeholder carries are considerable,
60 min
1355
Michael A. Cohen, “American Maelstrom: The 1968...
In American Maelstrom: The 1968 Election and the Politics of Division (Oxford University Press, 2016), Michael A. Cohen shows how the 1968 American presidential election proved to be an “inflection point” of history that shattered the long-standing “li...
41 min
1356
Victor Li, “Nixon in New York: How Wall Street ...
In 1962 Richard Nixon suffered a humiliating defeat in the California gubernatorial election, one that led him to declare an end to his career in politics. What followed was one of the most remarkable political comebacks in American history,
Stories about the suburbs often focus on conservatism. But, as Lily Geismer shows in her fascinating book, called Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberalism and the Transformation of the Democratic Party (Princeton University Press,
53 min
1358
Thomas B. Reston, “Soul of a Democrat: The Seve...
Democrats need to stop their “monomania” over Donald Trump and reconnect with their party’s core ideals to reclaim political power, argues Thomas B. Reston in his book Soul of a Democrat: The Seven Core Ideals That Made Our Party and Our Country Great ...
33 min
1359
David Neiwert, “Alt-America: The Rise of the Ra...
Investigative journalist and Northwest correspondent for the Southern Poverty Law Center, David Neiwert has been covering the radical right-wing for decades. In Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump (Verso, 2017),
37 min
1360
David Faris, “It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Dem...
Roosevelt University political science professor David Faris counsels Democrats to disregard procedural precedents and niceties, and pugnaciously wield power in his book, It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American ...
37 min
1361
Roderick P. Hart, “Civic Hope: How Ordinary Ame...
To find out what Americans really think about their government, University of Texas-Austin Professor Roderick P. Hart read and analyzed approximately 10,000 letters to the editor, from 12 “ordinary” cities, written between 1948 and the present.
39 min
1362
Laurence Bogoslaw, “Russians on Trump: Coverage...
For all the American media coverage of President Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia, what’s rarely heard are the voices of Russians themselves. Russians on Trump: Coverage and Commentary (East View Press, 2018), edited by Laurence Bogoslaw,
52 min
1363
Salena Zito and Brad Todd, “The Great Revolt: I...
During the 2016, journalist Salena Zito, who is based in Western Pennsylvania, sensed a brewing conservative populist in the white working-class when many thought the election would be determined by other demographic groups.
40 min
1364
Amanda Carpenter, “Gaslighting America: Why We ...
CNN commentator Amanda Carpenter was an early conservative critic of Donald Trump when she was targeted in a smear campaign falsely accusing her of an extramarital affair with Trump’s 2016 Republican primary rival Sen. Ted Cruz. In her words,
41 min
1365
Stephen E. Strang, “God and Donald Trump” (Fron...
Those looking for deeper understanding of why the socially conservative, evangelical Christian community has been so loyal of Donald Trump will find answers in the book God and Donald Trump (Frontline, 2017).
50 min
1366
Jesse Berrett, “Pigskin Nation: How the NFL Rem...
Today we are joined by Jesse Berrett, author of Pigskin Nation: How the NFL Remade American Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2018). Berrett is a high school history teacher at University High School in San Francisco.
52 min
1367
Jason Linkins, “Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy De...
In Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy DeVos Story (Strong Arm Press, 2018), Jason Linkins delivers a searing critique of controversial Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The book tracks the DeVos family’s accumulation of wealth through ...
44 min
1368
Jonah Goldberg, “Suicide of the West” (Crown Fo...
In Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy (Crown Forum, 2018), conservative Jonah Goldberg argues that America’s foundation of democracy and capitalism is a “Mira...
52 min
1369
Charlie Sykes, “How the Right Lost Its Mind” (S...
Charlie Sykes had been a conservative in good standing for decades, hosting a popular Wisconsin talk radio show. But he found himself to be a man without a party after become a vocal opponent of Donald Trump in 2016.
41 min
1370
Amanda Marcotte, “Troll Nation” (Hot Books, 2018)
What fueled Donald Trump’s election? In Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself (Hot Books, 2018), Salon senior political writer Amanda Marcotte argues it was not a principled...
39 min
1371
Joseph Esposito, “Dinner in Camelot: The Night ...
In his new book, Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House (ForeEdge, 2018), Joseph Esposito examines the night of April 49, 1962 when President John F.
45 min
1372
Carl Cannon, “On This Date: From the Pilgrims t...
Five days a week, Carl Cannon writes the Morning Note newsletter for Real Clear Politics, and includes a historical vignette about something in American history that happened on that date. Now he’s turned his daily vocation into a book.
40 min
1373
Joshua Zeitz, “Building the Great Society: Insi...
How did President Lyndon Johnson engineer one of the biggest bursts of liberal legislation in American history? And did his vision of a Great Society successfully alleviate poverty and reduce inequality? In Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Joh...
43 min
1374
Matt K. Lewis, “Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP W...
Political commentator Matt K. Lewis warns his fellow conservatives that their movement is going off the rails in Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump (Hachette, 2016). Lewis chafes at the populist,
42 min
1375
Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Strangers in Their O...
Since it was published in 2016, Arlie Russell Hochschild‘s Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press, 2016) has been many times heralded as necessary reading for our current political moment.