Why We're Polarized
Book description
A BARACK OBAMA AND A BILL GATES SUMMER READING PICK 2022
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
'This book helped me understand modern politics better' - Bill Gates, Summer Reading Pick 2022
'Superbly researched and written' - Francis Fukuyama, The Washington Post
'It's been a long time…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Why We're Polarized as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I am a huge fan of people who can translate vast amounts of research findings in a way that’s engaging, accessible, and accurate. I’m also a fan of people who don’t waste our time by shying away from hard truths, like the fact that America’s polarization problem is largely about race or that our polarized politics get baked back into our institutions and make everything worse. Klein is a master at all of this.
When I read his book, I was deep in the academic literature about the psychology of misinformation beliefs. But his book made me zoom out to…
From Dannagal's list on understanding identity-driven wrongness in the United States.
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…
From Daniel's list on understanding and defusing political polarization in America.
If you love Why We're Polarized...
Tap Dancing on Everest
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up…
Want books like Why We're Polarized?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Why We're Polarized.
Share your top 3 reads of 2024!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,897
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Why We're Polarized, you might also like...
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
Harry and Arthur
With Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, Vice President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican leader on foreign policy, inherited a world in turmoil. With Europe flattened and the Soviets emerging as America’s new adversary, Truman and Vandenberg built a tight, bipartisan partnership at a bitterly partisan time…
