Reviewing Eric Posner's "The Demagogue's Playbook" in the Washington Post

                      

In today's Sunday Washington Post, I review University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner's new book on demagogues and the American presidency. For someone who studied international relations -- and, thus, demagogues, at Chicago in the mid-1990s, it's sobering to stop and realize that the same forces we once analyzed in the "backward East" of Europe and now being analyzed again because they are at work undermining democracy and rule of law in our own country, with horrific stakes.

The Demagogue's Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy from The Founders to Trump argues that only two true demagogues have reached the White House in the history of the United States: Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump. What's that mean and why should you care? Read on.

The last book I reviewed for the Post was Donald Kettl's new book on federalism, The Divided States of America.

Maine Sunday Telegram reviews UNION

Thanks to Thomas Urquhart for his review of my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, which recognizes the book's position in an informal trilogy with American Nations and American Character. The review ran in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram and is available for online reading here.

The Press Herald is hosting a virtual/live interview event July 22. More on that soon here, but details also via this link.

Reviewing Keane's "New Despotism" in Washington Monthly

Liberal democracies are under siege worldwide and a range of thinkers have been probing the reasons why.

John Keane, a professor of politics at the University of Sydney, has a new book explaining the threat, an allegedly new type of regime, The New Despotism. What are its characteristics? How does it differ from despotisms of the past? How does it threaten to unfold at home?

I explore these themes and offer a bit of my take in this review in the new print edition of the Washington Monthly.

My last review for the Monthly was of Jason DeParle's A Good Provider is One Who Leaves, an intimate portrait of global migration.

David Blight reviews UNION in the Washington Post

If I were to have created a wish list of eminent people who might be assigned to review my new book, David W. Blight, dean of Frederick Douglass biographers and historian of the implications of Reconstruction's collapse, would have been at the top. So I'm extremely excited that his review of Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood appears in today's print edition of the Washington Post. 

Blight, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography, Frederick Douglass, writes Union makes "visions of history into a kind of human drama... with a storyteller’s pace and vividness." In conclusion:

"The subtext for this book, like so much else these days, is Woodard’s fear that the 19th-century belief in an American ethno-state (meaning white) not only survived into our own time but is reascendant in Trumpism’s assault on “liberal civic nationalism.” As Woodard warns, only fools or the ignorant will think this battle will ever really end, even when President Trump and his own profane myth are banished."

Also, on Friday I joined Jefferson Public Radio, which serves the abortive State of Jefferson in southern Oregon and northern California, to talk about the book. That interview is here.

And finally, thanks again to Politics & Prose and NPR's Tom Gjelten for holding an excellent and enjoyable virtual book event this afternoon. That interview-and-audience questions session is now up via YouTube.

Talking with NPR's Tom Gjelten via Politics and Prose, June 28

COVID-19 has forced book tours have gone virtual, and my next stop for Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood is tomorrow, June 28, and it's a very cool one.

It's hosted by Washington, DC's famed bookstore, Politics & Prose, which uses an interview-and-audience-questions format via ZOOM. I'm delighted that Tom Gjelten -- of NPR fame, author of a great book on the effects of the 1965 immigration act, and fellow former Balkans-in-the-1990s correspondent -- is serving in the role of interviewer.

The event kicks off at 1pm. You can register for the Zoom-driven event here, and can also order books directly from the store's website. I'll be signing bookplates for them to add to those who want them.

Hope to see friends from DC and beyond there. [Update, 6/28/20: Thanks to Tom and P&P for a great event. The proceedings are now up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.]

For some early reviews of Union, check out this post (Library Journal, American Scholar) and this one (Kirkus, Booklist) and reviews in The Christian Science Monitor (which also named the book to their Top Ten Books for June list) and the Washington Post (by none other than David Blight, renowned scholar of Douglass and the rolling back of the civil rights gains of the Civil War.)

Christian Science Monitor on UNION

Thanks to the Christian Science Monitor, which this week first named Union to their list of the Top Ten June Books, and now has this excellent review from Steve Donoghue.

The review concludes with:

"Woodard describes facets of “an intellectual battle of the highest possible stakes” that raged over the rough century his book chronicles. The stakes are nothing short of determining how a nation thinks about itself, how it teaches posterity about itself. In “Union,” that battle sprawls out of the narrow confines of academia and embroils the entire country – and the fight is ongoing."

Spot on.

For some prepub reviews of Union, check out this post (Library Journal, American Scholar) and this one (Kirkus, Booklist.)

My next virtual book event is June 28 with Politics and Prose (and NPR's Tom Gjelten interviewing me) from Washington. Details here. (I got to know Gjelten after reviewing his excellent book on the ramifications of the 1965 Immigration Act, A Nation of Nations, in the Washington Post.)

Library Journal and the American Scholar on Union, my forthcoming book

Amazingly, the calendar says its just nine days until my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, goes in sale. Book tour, as conventionally understood, has been largely cancelled by the ongoing pandemic, though there will be several virtual events and maybe even a couple of socially distanced outdoor in person ones. But there are some more early reviews.

Library Journal -- the trade publication of American libraries founded by Melil Dewey of Dewey decimal system fame -- gave Union a starred review, my first from them since my first book, Ocean's End, twenty years ago. Reviewer Michael Farrell writes: "Woodard is a gifted historiographer, and this excellent work will be appreciated by anyone interested in American history and how it came to be written." The review is currently not paywalled and found here.

In The American Scholar -- the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society -- Jill Levoy of the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy wrote the first feature length review of the book, and it's one that's made my publisher very happy. "Beginning with the simplicity of fable, Union quickly builds into a surprisingly complex work of intellectual history," Levoy writes. "Woodard... shows just how powerful a form popular nonfiction can be in the hands of a disciplined writer who won’t tolerate generality or abstraction. Union moves quickly, skipping from one anecdote to the next. The lens is narrow. Physical detail is prominent. The writing is relentlessly accessible." Unfortunately, it's currently paywalled, unless you subscribe.

Union is available at socially distanced bookstores everywhere June 16.

Early reviews of Union, my forthcoming book

Looking at the calendar, I realize the on sale date for my new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, is less than a month away. While the in-person book tour is pretty much cancelled by the ongoing pandemic, there have been the early reviews, and this seems as good a time to share them.

Publisher's Weekly says Union is "a fluid narrative that manages to make abstract intellectual concepts tangible. This enlightening and character-driven account will resonate with progressive
history buffs." (The reviewer also says "Woodard oversells his argument by treating pride in the nation’s constitutional legacy as historically discrete from pride in America’s cultural heritage," a sentence I've been scrutinizing for the better part of a month and still have no idea what they are talking about in the context of this book...but I digress.)

Kirkus calls it "Sturdy American history" and says "Woodard manages to bring all of his disparate biographical threads together in a coherent narrative, using as his apotheosis the life of Woodrow Wilson, Southern-born writer of his own Anglo Saxon–centered History of the American People and proponent of D.W. Griffith’s white supremacist film Birth of a Nation (1915)."

I hope you'll consider reading it. More details as pub date approaches. Union is available for preorder,  with links to various retailers from Penguin-Random House's page for it.

[Update, 6/7/20: Two more early reviews out now from Library Journal and The American Scholar.]

Reviewing Donald Kettl's "Divided States of America" for the Washington Post

U.S. Federalism -- the division of powers between the federal and state governments -- has been a tricky thing since the outset, leading to a horrific Civil War, enormous disparities between states in terms of social outcomes, tax burdens, and the quality of services and -- we will sadly soon learn -- possibly even pandemic awareness and survival.

Readers of American Nations know the Founders didn't really have a chance in the matter. The regional cultures and the states they controlled were so different from one another -- a slaveholding oligarchy in the Deep South had completely different political and ideological goals than the descendants of the Puritans, with their fear of aristocracy and demand for hyper-local control -- that there would never have been a United States had they not created a very great compromise. But is it an institution that can still hold us together, or is it destined to drive us apart for good?

Donald Kettl, a political scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, has taken up these questions in his timely new book, The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work. I reviewed it for the Washington Post and you can read my thoughts on it there.

Reviewing DeParle's book on migrants in Washington Monthly

Jason DeParle, a George Polk Award–winning reporter for the New York Times, embedded with a family of Manila slum dwellers thirty-three years ago and has kept contact with them ever since, allowing him to do something remarkable in his new book. A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves tells the story of global migration through the experiences of a single migrant family over three generations in intimate, often eyewitness detail. It’s a journey that starts in a one-room shanty open to rats and rain and ends on a cul-de-sac in a newly constructed Texas City subdivision. 

I had the privilege of reviewing  the book for the new issue of Washington Monthly and hope you'll take the time to read it and the book. It's a story that will leave you better understanding how the world works today and where we’re likely headed.

Why did Evangelicals support Trump?

One of the great mysteries of the 2016 presidential election is how it was that 80 percent of Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, perhaps the most un-family values candidate ever to hold a major party nomination.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frances Fitzgerald has a whopping thick new history of the Evangelical movement out -- The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America -- and it's got a lot of clues to solving the problem. I outline them in my review of the book for the Washington Post. I think it runs in the Sunday print edition, but it's online now. [Update: 10/20/17: Sunday Outlook section, B6.)

Busy with the launch of my own book and a far-flung project for Politico, my last review for the Post was over a year ago: of Tim Marshall's book on geopolitics, Prisoners of Geography.

[Update: 10/20/17: For those in the Upper Hudson Valley, this review also ran in the Albany Times-Union today. And if you happen to live in the Brazilian state of Parana, I've got you covered in Gazeta do Povo (in Portuguese.)]

Washington Monthly Reviews American Character

Just in time for the 2016 election, Washington Monthly has a review of my recent book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, the sequel to American Nations, in their new issue.

Novelist and journalist Jennifer Miller is the reviewer and focuses on how hyper-charged everything in this history seems in the context of the late phase of this insane election cycle. Of course, the book was finished in the late Spring of 2015 -- when Donald Trump was being discounted as a freak sideshow and nobody was expecting a little known Social Democrat from Vermont to give the Democratic frontrunner a run for the money -- which shows just how much more vitriolic our public discourse has gotten in little over a year.

This results in Miller writing this observation, ending with my favorite line of any review so far: "Even Woodard's discussion of evolutionary biology feels political," she notes of a passage countering the idea that humans' are natural state is to be individuals operating in a state of anarchy. "'Our evolutionary ancestors, Homo erectus, were using fire a million years ago, a game-changing innovation that led them to live in group campsites [and] share tasks responsibilities, and resources,' [Woodard writes.] And yet given the virulence of today's small-government evangelists and Ayn Rand individualists, it's difficult not to wonder: Is this how far back we need to go to make a case for the collective? To fire?"

Indeed, if you're to counter a ideology going back to Thomas Hobbes' musings on the origins of government, you do!

Thanks to Miller and the Monthly for reviewing the book.

Free Lance-Star, Kennebec Journal reviews of American Character

I'm sharing two recent reviews of my new book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, one from the Virginia Tidewater, the other from Yankee Maine.

The Free Lance-Star, the daily in Fredericksburg, Virginia, had this review of the book recently. "A GPS through our country's political past and into our confounding present," says reviewer Dan Dervin.

The Lance-Star has had a long-standing interest in my previous book, American Nations, publishing my OpEd back in the 2012 presidential cycle and an analysis -- originally written for Washington Monthly's Ten Miles Square blog -- of the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election.

Separately, Bill Bushnell, the books columnist at Maine's Kennebec Journal (Augusta) and Morning Sentinel (Waterville) dailies reviews the book in his latest column. "In American Character," he writes, "Woodard astutely examines the political, economic and social history of the U.S. over four centuries, explaining how the balance between individual freedoms and the common good has shifted dramatically, often with wide swings from one to the other."

Thanks to both papers for their interest in the book.

For those in Maine, I'll be speaking on American Character in Kennebunkport on July 10.

Bowling Green (Ky.) Daily News reviews American Character

I was in Kentucky briefly earlier this week, signing some copies of American Character at Newport's Barnes & Noble en route to CVG, so it seems appropriate that the Bowling Green Daily News just reviewed said book, and glowingly so.

Thanks to Western Kentucky University's Aaron Hughey for the kind words. "“American Character” is an eye-opening critique and analysis that should be read by anyone interested in the future direction of our republic," he concludes. "I recommend it highly."

For those in Ohio, there are now signed copies of this and other titles at The Booksellers on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati and at the B&N in Columbus's Polaris Mall.

Maine Sunday Telegram reviews American Character

This week's Maine Sunday Telegram includes a review of my newly-released American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good. Thomas Urquhart is the reviewer. He calls it "a big-dipper ride through four centuries as first collectivists then individualists tae their turn at managing the country."

As an author and book reviewer myself, I appreciate Urquhart's critical eye and thoughtful distillation of what is a complicated book.

One point of fact to push back on here because, hey, where else would I do it? It's not true that I trot Cornel West out to attest to Barack Obama governing similar to an Eisenhowerite Republican; West -- the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America -- is instead quoted refuting the thesis that Obama is a "socialist." It's Bruce Bartlett -- the former Reagan and George W Bush aide who helped Jack Kemp perfect the argument for supply-side economics -- who makes that "Obama as Old School moderate Republican" pitch, right in the very same paragraph, backing up an idea fleshed out elsewhere in the book by W speechwriter Michael Gerson. But I digress....

My real message: thanks to Urquhart and the Telegram for a erudite and thoughtful first review.

Earlier today I was the guest on Maine Public Broadcasting's "Maine Calling"; tonight I'll be speaking at River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and tomorrow I'm doing twelve radio interviews back to back with stations in ten states coast to coast and the District of Columbia. Long-form highlights include an hour with Oregon's Jefferson Public Radio at 9 Pacific, a half hour with Napa Broadcasting to be taped later, and fifteen minute segments with WAMC/Northeast Public Radio at 2:30 Eastern and WTOP in D.C. at 2:10.

Reviewing "Prisoners of Geography" at the Washington Post

Tim Marshall, veteran foreign correspondent for Britain's SkyNews, has a new book out on geopolitics. Prisoners of Geography argues the influence of geographic elements is under recognized in our contemporary foreign policy and historical discourse and aims to fix that.

He does so with mixed success, as I argue in my review in yesterday's Washington Post. Marshall is strong on Russia, weak on North America and the Pacific, and doesn't really make a case for a new (or even renewed) way of analyzing world events.

My last review for the Post was on Brand Luther, a new book on Martin Luther's game-changing effect on the greatest social media innovation of his time: the printed book.

American Character -- the first review

My fifth book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good is out on March 15th, but Kirkus has their advanced review up now at their website and in the new issue to hit the stands this week.

The pull-quote: "Thoughtful political theory for divisive times."

The book is available for pre-order at Amazon and presumably your local independent bookstore which, in my case, is Longfellow Books (where I'll be doing one of my first book tour appearances), Gulf of Maine Books, or Sherman's.

How Martin Luther reinvented the book

Martin Luther didn't just spark the Reformation, he invented the modern book and the publishing industry. That's the intriguing story told on this, the eve of the 500th anniversary of his 95 theses, in Andrew Pettegree's new book Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe, and Started the Protestant Reformation. 

I reviewed the book for tomorrow's Washington Post. Here's a taste:

When Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door in the Saxon backwater town of Wittenberg, moveable type was something like the computer in the 1960s, a useful and expensive tool used by academics and elite institutions....Luther realized the untapped potential of print as a mass medium and used it to broadcast his message to lay readers across the German states, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers via this new social media. 

My most recent review for the Post was of Tom Gjelten's Nation of Nations in October.

Reviewing Tom Gjelten's new book for the Washington Post

Fifty years ago, the United States liberalized its immigration regime, doing away with the racist reforms of 1924, which sought to prevent the country from becoming more diverse. Remarkably, neither proponents nor critics of the 1965 reforms sought to increase the country's racial and ethnic diversity; on the contrary, both camps argued the changes would not have this effect.

NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten's new book, A Nation of Nations, examines the consequences for the country in general and for Fairfax County, Virginia in particular. I review the book in today's Washington Post.

For readers of American Nations: Gjelten's detailed case study of Fairfax County provides ample evidence that at least this corner of Tidewater is likely transforming into something that looks and sounds an awful lot like the Midlands, and Fairfax's experience is likely replicated across much of fast-growing northern Virginia.

My last review for the Post was of former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Eleni Kounalakis's memoir of her years in Budapest, watching Hungary fall under the shadow of its autocratic leader, Viktor Orban (who I wrote about for Politico here.)

[Update, 10/21/15: The Denver Post picked up the review in their Sunday edition this week.]

[Update, 10/22/15: Australia's Financial Review has also reprinted the review.]

[Update. 10/26/15: The Kansas City Star as well.]

Hungary's slide from democracy, Part II

For those not sure how to spend the rest of the spring solstice and Father's Day, let me suggest a review of the memoir of the former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, Eleni Kounalakis.

Kounalakis served in Budapest for the first three years of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's rule, a period in which he's turned Hungary away from liberal democracy and towards something closer to Russia, Singapore and China. Her book is surprisingly frank and paints a disturbing picture of the direction of the Hungarian state.

The review, which appears in today's Sunday Washington Post, is my second piece this week on the situation back in Hungary, where I lived for more than four years between 1989 and 1996, and where I returned recently. The previous one -- on Orban's construction of what he calls the "illiberal state" -- appeared in Politico Magazine a few days ago.

My most recent review for the Post was of former Rep. Barney Frank's memoir.