Madeleine Schwartz — How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump -with Linda Kinstler

Daniel Squadron — The Fourth Branch: How State Government Can Save Our Union - with E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Senator Chuck Schumer

This part handbook, part history, and part personal narrative will open readers’ eyes to the oft-overlooked arm of government that has done more harm and more good than any other in recent years: state legislatures. After the 2024 election, many voters were left feeling disillusioned with America’s highest governing body. Anxious citizens point to the federal government and national elected officials with growing alarm, but the broken political system they see in Washington is merely a symptom. The site of that break—and the best opportunity to mend it—lies in the states. In The Fourth Branch, [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781638933854?ic_referral=2LjFaSUNPKfdZTPw8AYuwJ4JK-vMsGcpcw6dyP8cGlswMwtpfi5qnMur750co9P7dHRwGZgdvVyGL0Bk0_acmn_nbQsuwXbOEUhowV9F8I98553r_eNHi8jcoevLh3XxBjvv9PY] co-founder of The States Project Daniel Squadron opens readers’ eyes to the oft-overlooked arm of government that has far more power than most people even realize: state legislatures. Nearly every major issue that Americans care about—from climate change to minimum wage, abortion access to criminal justice reform, gun control to paid family leave—can be determined without the involvement of the federal government. Detailing the systems, experiences, and strategic thinking that inform The States Project’s approach to making change—one designed to combat decades of conservative investment and manipulation at the state level—this guide is an urgently needed and galvanizing framework for participation in our democracy, made all the more engaging by Daniel’s stories of his time as a New York State Senator and his work with inspiring lawmakers around the country. In examining the power and possibility of the states—both their capacity to influence national politics and the low barriers to involvement at the state level—this book will chart a course to real, grounded hope for the future through actions that any ordinary civilian can take to make concrete and lasting change.  A compelling exploration of where power really lies in our government, The Fourth Branch will be a book for anyone who cares about our country and wants to do something about where it’s headed. Daniel Squadron is a former aide to Senator Chuck Schumer, former New York State Senator, and co-founder of The States Project. Squadron will be in conversation with E.J. Dionne, Jr., a bestselling author, a syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in The Washington Post and nearly a hundred other newspapers, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University. His Why Americans Hate Politics won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a nominee for the National Book Award. He is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and on other radio and television programs. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Mary Boyle, and their three children. A VIP special guest will be joining the conversation with Squadron and Dionne. Senator Chuck Schumer PURCHASE BOOK: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781638933854?ic_referral=32ec43wYYtdvbyTm1BXlk2sI8DCOy1o2hZQZCvdrnI8wM-wmqZXhJWI4Fh_RClSBQah9l42lBHsFodiY_2vDLrRPmiMkNG75eNx2rhHvwuyt1FC7_qkSdVWaq79S6aDxAHd9cHc

Madeleine Schwartz — How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump -with Linda Kinstler

From the celebrated magazine of international writing, twelve sharp global perspectives on a changing United States, with an introduction by the Dial's editor in chief, Madeleine Schwartz The 2024 U.S. presidential election reverberated internationally, a global event whose outcome has already reshaped trade, migration, security, and rising authoritarianism across the world. Inside the United States, we are swamped by the news cycle; but how does the wider world see and interpret what is happening under Trump? In How We See It [https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850222?ic_referral=MgrFWxR4AmgN4I8T1cZWKetvYXN-c_-g_8EwFvXGhP8wM5JhVrueqej1m0t88hP76br7ZylP4TKKV0FDVMnLpyXYGLTdo3jJDzN0a-efSg9-ta3KbZ4GSYUQ_2-dU0SfAmMqzyM], twelve of the most talented and insightful journalists from around the world probe their home countries' complex relationship with the United States--and how this has swerved under the new administration. A diverse, international cast of writers examines how Turkey's recent history helps us understand America's slide into autocracy, how Argentina's century-long obsession with the dollar has changed under Trump, anti-American tourism sentiment in Italy, and what right-wing Americans get wrong about South Africa. Essays in the collection also look at how Taiwan is navigating the uncertainty of Trump's response in the event of a Chinese invasion and the newly fraught view of the U.S. from Canada. Featuring pieces commissioned by The Dial, the award-winning magazine, How We See It shifts and expands our frame of reference, our self-awareness, and our understanding of how much our world has changed since the election of 2024. Madeleine Schwartz the founder and editor-in-chief of The Dial, a new, award-winning magazine of international writing. Founded in 2023, The Dial is an online magazine of culture, politics, and ideas, with a focus on local writing from around the world. Schwartz is in conversation with Linda Kinstler, a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. Her first book, Come to This Court and Cry: How The Holocaust Ends, won a 2023 Whiting Award in Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize for Jewish Literature. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9798893850222?ic_referral=YUqvefCpNQplGYg2i3Nn4JuN0xbdS_F20CWGOO3djB4wM8r73X8eGghS18Ji5u5xN5UQ-csTRmgNwGilRHsaqnd77veKnPvwdQro90jDzAksoHz2c3JieL_VP1ygTdvY6Rj7ft0

Ellen Prentiss Campbell — Vanishing Point - with Dorothy Reno

‘As all Pittsburghers know, Homewood Cemetery is full of stories.  Here Ellen Prentiss Campbell unearths not one but three, piecing together the fascinating yet little-known saga of the Hetzels.  VANISHING POINT is a smart, sharp historical novel that combines the shifting mores of art and the changing fortunes of one extraordinary American family.’ - Stewart O’Nan, author of EMILY, ALONE and EVENSO Vanishing Point [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781627206877], Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s newest historical novel, is a family epic spanning three generations and a hundred years, from the 1880’s to the 1980’s. The story of Pennsylvania artist George Hetzel’s complicated family explores their joys and sorrows, secrets and mysteries. Deeply researched and vividly imagined, it presents a family you will long remember as it celebrates the enduring strength of love and art. Ellen Prentiss Campbell grew up in Pennsylvania and Maryland. A graduate of Smith College and The Bennington Writing Seminars, for many years Ellen practiced psychotherapy. Her novels The Bowl with Gold Seams and Frieda’s Song and her story collections Contents Under Pressure and Known by Heart have garnered awards, recognition and – best of all – many readers. Member of the National Book Critics Circle, her blog “Girl Writing” appears in The Washington Independent. Ellen lives walking distance from Politics and Prose. Ellen is in conversation with Dorothy Reno, classic-books columnist for the Independent. Her short fiction has been published in Canada and the United States; she is at work on a collection of essays. She lives in Washington DC and previously resided in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Tbilisi, Georgia. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781627206877?ic_referral=p-dpjxgNU-YLmm35MQDlee-9T16ntB3WTGs2YEL0-FgwM3Kt-gIcy4afK4OiL0XmQA2A02F7jZeP1wIEA89yGPbu0B14G3sTlChkqou9m81siHshgid4cIN9L7lBTWSwLLsJ7FQ

Ben Fountain — Rasputin Swims the Potomac: A Novel - with Stephen Kearse

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk comes a biting satire of American politics and a searingly intelligent novel about the cruel absurdities of contemporary life, centering on a world champion professional wrestler with presidential ambitions Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term. After an outbreak at a campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of “weeping sickness” sweeps the nation, threatening the president’s hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing. But as Rasputin’s appeal threatens to exceed the president’s, and the wrestler’s supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts. Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250776549?ic_referral=Xw6p5zz-K5rAIImxG-Ai5W6PjdHRvnIH_JhGrS_Q_KowM1wC29vEUo8WGtqWX6xuAq7XMPP6RLHGRAyf8tx35oGNqMmczl1vc9p0naAqv6aZUq0wC6xcIatpmgRWml_V5vdeeF0] is both an escape and a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism. Ben Fountain's most recent book is the novel Rasputin Swims the Potomac.  His work has received the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, among other honors, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award.  A former practicing attorney in Texas, he now lives in eastern North Carolina. Fountain is in conversation with Stephen Kearse, the author of Liquid Snakes, In the Heat of the Light, and Post, a forthcoming novel about the U.S. Post Office. His short fiction has been published in Joyland, The Deadlands, FIYAH, and Plotter. He works as a journalist and lives in metro Washington, D.C., with his family. He has never swam the Potomac, but he enjoys walking along it. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781250776549?ic_referral=XZ-zO1miIU5-husD8gc0NQ5mTr7hjbA_5tNmH62lYbowM7_PBWTYMf43H6Bip_NlhMriJQRPpHZVKzUueeUeeuK6Fqo4iBKNc9vd8A-yZBRlfB1cpKO2rQz-HaNY6YeNIaNoxdE

Gautham Rao — White Power: Policing American Slavery - with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi

Beginning in the colonial era and growing through the American Revolution and the Southern plantation system, slaveholders' violent police regime continued after Emancipation, through Reconstruction, to today. Moving across time, space, and place, White Power [https://politics-prose.com/book/9781469694849] uncovers how slaveholders created their own white supremacist police and government to deny Black people rights, power, and humanity. Legal historian Gautham Rao introduces us to laws that empowered white people to forcibly exercise their desired racial superiority over Black people, shows how they spread from the South throughout the nation, and traces the rebellions, fugitivity, activism, and legal systems that challenged them. Rao's narrative includes slaveholders, lawmakers, and the Ku Klux Klan, dramatic escapes by runaway enslaved people, abolitionist activism in courtroom showdowns, and pitched battles between white paramilitaries and enslaved rebels. He offers a new interpretation of the history of policing in the US, centering the institution and legacy of slavery and speaking to the origins of today's persistence of white vigilance, white supremacist militia groups, and white racist cops determined to maintain power over Black people by force. Equally determined, however, was Black Americans' refusal to accept it. Gautham Rao is associate professor of history at American University in Washington, DC, and Editor-in-Chief of Law and History Review. Rao is in conversation with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, one of the world’s foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars. His books have been translated into multiple languages and republished throughout the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Dr. Kendi is Professor of History and the founding director of the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study, an interdisciplinary research enterprise examining global racism. He is author of many highly acclaimed bestsellers including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. He is the author of the international bestseller How to Be an Antiracist. Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. PURCHASE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781469694849?ic_referral=ek4ZSxcq-2GgaQE8QcLmx8CVRfffkIRbyUEJwvdIJbQwM2i_GlcSF8q_Fe8p5jSYPkot4SQ7IRASg6lAQ-iKZoB-4MiInC_Jmfo996OpJs_4CfdN69VZhN31bgBctTRsQUv-edU