December 5, 2024
Do you have someone on your list who is interested in history, politics, or civic engagement? We’ve compiled this list of book recommendations and conversations with the authors to help.
- The Civic Bargain—Brook Manville and Josiah Ober: By examining how historical democracies confronted their own challenges, the authors distill lessons and principles that can benefit us today.
- The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It - Nathan Perl-Rosenthal: There is broad scholarly agreement that our current political world owes much to what Thomas Paine was the first to call the “age of revolutions”—that is, the several late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century decades during which revolutions rocked the globe.
- The Art of Diplomacy - Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat: In one place, you can read about every major contemporary international agreement, from the treaty to end the Vietnam War to the Kyoto Protocols and the Iranian Nuclear Accord, and has earned glowing reviews from people as different in outlook as Tony Blair and Henry Kissinger. Diplomacy is a craft founded on trust and compromise.
- Black Ghost of Empire - Professor Kris Manjapra: Professor Manjapra explores emancipation in America, often presented as a single and singular undertaking. He complicates that story by situating America’s national emancipation in a long line of global emancipations–including the first emancipations, which occurred in America’s North in the late 18th century–that were in many ways structured to benefit former enslavers and ensure that the formerly enslaved remained repressed.
- The Overlooked Americans: The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means For Our Country - Elizabeth Currid-Halkett: Ms. Currid-Halkett argues that rural Americans and rural America are in many ways thriving despite what the news may be reporting.
We hope this helps as you work through your holiday to-do list. Throughout the year, we’ve enjoyed wonderful conversations with authors, policy leaders, and elected officials, and we can’t wait to share new conversations in 2025. We invite you to sign up for our newsletter, follow us on social media, and subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform to stay up-to-date on the latest conversations and future books.