Read by Suehyla El-Attar and the author

Introduction read by the author. An eye-opening new history of American political conflict, from Alexander Hamilton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These days it seems that nobody is satisfied with American democracy. Critics across the ideological spectrum warn that the country is heading toward catastrophe but also complain that nothing seems to change. At the same time, many have begun to wonder if the gulf between elites and ordinary people has turned democracy itself into a myth. The urge to defend the country's foundations and to dismantle them coexist-often within the same people. How did we get here? Why does it feel like the country is both grinding to a halt and falling to pieces? In Realigners, the historian Timothy Shenk offers an eye-opening new biography of the American political tradition. In a history that runs from the drafting of the Constitution to the storming of the Capitol, Shenk offers sharp pen portraits of signal characters from James Madison and Charles Sumner to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama. The result is an entertaining and provocative reassessment of the people who built the electoral coalitions that defined American democracy-and a guide for a time when figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to MAGA-minded nationalists seek to turn radical dreams into political realities. In an era when it seems democracy is caught in perpetual crisis, Realigners looks at earlier moments when popular majorities transformed American life. We've had those moments before. And if there's an escape from the doom loop that American politics has become, it's because we might have one again. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Timothy Shenk is an assistant professor of history at George Washington University. The coeditor of Dissent magazine, he has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, and Jacobin, among other publications. He has been a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the New America Foundation. He lives outside Washington, D.C. "[Realigners] is fair in its criticisms, vividly written, impressively researched, and-best of all-delightfully out of step with present-day liberal orthodoxy . . . Highly readable." -Barton Swaim, The Wall Street Journal "Shenk offers a valuable framework for analyzing American politics . . . An astute and stylish history that speaks to present-day concerns over partisan polarization." -Publishers Weekly "This is an exhilarating book. Shenk sees clearly that democracy can change the world, but that most attempts end in tragedy rather than victory. From James Madison through W.E.B. Du Bois and Walter Lippmann, to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama, his characters stand at this political fault line. Every chapter shines with insight, arresting detail, and vivid judgment. This is a work of political history worthy of a novelist, and a work of political realism that-just-shows how to keep democratic hope alive." -Jedediah Purdy, professor of law at Columbia University and author of Two Cheers for Politics, This Land is Our Land, and other books "Realigners announces the emergence of a bold, deeply informed, and highly original new voice in the world of American politics and its history, with special attention to the relationship between political elites and the broader public. Its closest antecedent is Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition, and like that iconic work it is beautifully written and argued, and filled with insights that will inform both specialists and a broader public that wants to know the origins of our current democratic dilemmas." -Eric Foner, professor of history emeritus at Columba University and author of The Story of American Freedom and other books "Ti

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