The best books for understanding and defusing political polarization in America

This is the OG of books on polarization in modern US politics.

It’s a seminal take on partisan misunderstanding, arguing that Democrats and Republicans have different “moral foundations” or values, and that it’s often the case that neither side’s values are fundamentally better or worse, they’re just different.

Haidt compellingly describes himself as a formerly polarized liberal who grew more tolerant and even appreciative of conservatives when he came to understand them better due to his research.

Moral foundations theory is somewhat controversial now but there’s a lot of good evolutionary psychology in the book that clearly holds up well, like Haidt’s discussion of the “groupishness” of human nature and how “moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog.”

Ezra Klein’s a journalist not an academic, but he does an excellent job of incorporating important academic research on polarization (in particular, work by political scientists Lilliana Mason and Lee Drutman) with a DC insider’s knowledge of how politics really works.

Klein offers a very different take on polarization from Haidt’s, focusing on history, racial politics, “partisan sorting,” and institutional incentives as the cause of polarizing behavior by politicians today. He also provides a nice discussion of practical policy options for reducing polarization like multi-member Congressional districts with proportional representation and Supreme Court term limits.

Klein admittedly leans left and while striving for neutrality does place more blame on the Republican party for polarization so I recommend also reading critiques of Klein’s book from those not in his camp to see their reactions.

To balance out my list is Divided We Fall by David French, who recently became The New York Times’s newest conservative columnist.

So, yes, he’s a moderate conservative—and his book actually stands out to me among polarization books because it does a particularly good job of articulating both conservative and liberal perspectives on various issues, and both sides’ reasons for frustration and anger.

I also especially appreciate French’s discussion of the “law of group polarization”—the tendency for people’s opinions to become more extreme when we confer with like-minded groups—French and I agree this is a key cause of US polarization. And true to the title, the book includes descriptions of potential secession scenarios—not pleasant to read but perhaps a wake-up call for some readers.

This book is quite different from the others on my list in that the author is a total outsider to politics: Elwood is a former professional poker player.

But it’s the book that resonates with me the most as it directly makes the case that affective polarization is bad for the country and is to a large extent misguided—and citizens across the spectrum should actively try to overcome and fight it. Elwood writes informally and engagingly while still referring to tons of academic research and tackling many thorny recent issues in detail.

If there was one book that I would ask my most polarized fellow Americans to read carefully this would probably be it. Poker champs tend to be astute observers of human psychology—think Annie Duke and Maria Konnikova—and Elwood maintains this tradition. 

Preventing Polarization is, as the title implies, a guide for educators on how to reduce polarization in the next generation. So, it’s unlikely to lead to immediate progress with polarization—but who knows, maybe some adults in positions of power might take some lessons from it as well.

Anyway, I love the premise here as I do think that education is probably crucial for long-term progress with this difficult part of human nature. Just as we must teach our kids to be tolerant and kind toward those from different racial and religious backgrounds or are different from ourselves in any number of ways—we must teach our kids to not be excessively effective polarized!