The Ezra Klein Show

I remember when I was on the Why We're Polarized book tour.

You know, in 2020, I published my first book, which is called Why We're Polarized. And the final paragraphs of that book are this argument that I make about realism, that as polarized, as divided as things feel, I mean, you can look back in our history and see it much worse.

I feel my personal experience of that book is that it has roared back into focus for me in the past four or five months. So Why We're Polarized is about the way that the highly regionalized, ideologically diverse political parties of the 20th century ... collapsed into much more ideologically narrow and coherent groups.

When I was writing that book, I was treating that sorting of the parties into these much more coherent units as an inevitability of media, of technology, of politics.

I will say the thing that Why We're Polarized did not talk about enough in the new versions is an afterward talking about it. It did not talk enough about educational polarization, which as a decisive form of polarization the Democratic Party was sorting into the higher educated coalition, the Republican Party moving into a less educated structure.

And a big part of that piece was kind of a callback to your first book, Why We're Polarized, which tees up a question from Mark S., who's a college professor who assigns Why We're Polarized to his students.

Why We're Polarized is about the way that the highly regionalized, ideologically diverse political parties of the 20th century, where you had very liberal and very conservative Democrats, very liberal and very conservative Republicans, how those parties collapsed or transformed into much more ideologically narrow and coherent groups by the end of the 20th century and coming into the 21st century.

I will say the thing that Why We're Polarized did not talk about enough in the new versions is an afterward talking about it. But it did not talk enough about educational polarization. That that as a decisive form of polarization, the Democratic Party was sorting into the higher educated coalition, the Republican Party moving into a less educated structure.

If you'd like to read about it, I wrote a whole book called Why We're Polarized.

I published a whole book about political polarization. It was called Why We're Polarized.

I wrote a book on it that came out in 2020, Why We're Polarized. And one of the points of that book is that to say a country is polarized doesn't actually give you that much information. The question is what is it polarized over?

He's been on Bookly first due to his schedule and then I'm going on. One of the reasons I wanted to cowrite this book is I found writing my first book, Why We're Polarized, to be an incredibly lonely experience.

I wrote my book, Why We're Polarized, about polarization and the way it has locked people in place.

Your book is Why We're Polarized and your column is at the New York Times.

This is a big theme of my book, Why We're Polarized.

This is a big theme of my book, Why We're Polarized.

So one fun thing about the paperback, a reason to run out and buy it is there is an afterword in the paperback, a new afterword about what I think the book got right and what I wish I had done differently in it.

the single biggest mistake I made was not believing the book's thesis enough.

Aura asks, has anything changed in how you view Why We're Polarized since its publication?

So one fun thing about the paperback, a reason to run out and buy it is there is an afterword in the paperback, a new afterword about what I think the book got right and what I wish I had done differently in it.

So one fun thing about the paperback, a reason to run out and buy it is there is an afterword in the paperback, a new afterword about what I think the book got right and what I wish I had done differently in it.

I say this in the afterword, the single biggest mistake I made was not believing the book's thesis enough.

One of the things I said in the book is that we are creating a political system through polarization that is almost immune to new evidence, where there is very little accountability because very little can change minds.

I wrote this book, Why We're Polarized, which is very much all about why it is on some basic level rational for even a Republican who didn't like Donald Trump on a personal level to have voted for him.

I wrote a book on polarization, Why We're Polarized, out in paperback now. My book is very influenced by Mason's book.

This was a key theme of my book, Why We're Polarized. Although I should say right now, quick plug, that the paperback with the brand new afterword just came out last week.

you've read my book on this, Why We're Polarized.

And the last book is a classic. It's not a modern study. But I think we now need to read Hannah Arendt. And we need to read The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism, another one of these books that when you begin quoting it, you know things are not going great. "Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all firstrate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty."

The last book is a classic; we need to read The Origins of Totalitarianism and reflect on the developments of the 20s and 30s and how those regimes came to power.

The last book is a classic... we need to read The Origins of Totalitarianism and reflect on the developments of the 20s and 30s and how those regimes came to power.

The last book is a classic. It's not a modern study. But I think we now need to go back to read Hannah Arendt, and we need to read The Origins of Totalitarianism and reflect on the developments of the 20s and the 30s and the nature of how these regimes came to power.

third book I would recommend, which, you know, I was also very impressed by actually rereading a book by, you know, Anna Arendt and, you know, the rise of totalitarianism, which I did not realize how much she was also talking about the issue of federalism and democratic federalism.

if people are interested in the Arendt book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, a couple weeks ago on the show, I had on an Applebomb for discussion all about that book and what it teaches us today.

That's how Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prizewinning historian and journalist at The Atlantic, begins her introduction to a new edition of Hannah Arendt's 1951 classic, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Why do people keep going back to this book?

I certainly had that experience reading Arendt for this, but I think like you do that her description and discussion of loneliness is really quite important.

She says towards the end that what makes a society vulnerable to takeover is loneliness.

The third thing I recommend is Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism. If you haven't read it, it's a very long book. You don't have to read all of it. But the sections in the second part that focus on mass movements and propaganda and dictatorship, you'll find them revelatory because they sound so much like things that are happening today.

which of course is a quotation from Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, which I will just make then book number two because Arendt is very good at getting inside the kinds of logics that we've talked about.

And this is something Hannah Arendt wrote about, right? That totalitarian regimes hold out the carrot of stability while constantly manufacturing instability.

So, first, I'll start with a classic, which is Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. The Goat. The Goat. In this discourse, I think it still totally holds up. The first chapter, which is... Somewhat predicts Donald Trump.

And this is the way Neil Postman, who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, put it.

I have to recommend Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death.

I mean, his book is a kind of indictment of TV.

In Neil Postman's great book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he says that the thing television is going to do to politics is make us believe politics should always be entertaining.

We see a lot more discussion of the good, of virtues, of ... Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, roughly will eventually happen is that we will think everything must be entertainment.

And this is the way Neil Postman, who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, put it. His book is a kind of indictment of TV, but he actually loved junk TV. He thought it was very entertaining.

I have to recommend Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman is at least incredibly clear and accessible, and it's a very good way into media ecology as a way of seeing and thinking about the world.

I've been rereading some Neil Postman for partially a project I'm doing, but partially because I think he's so unbelievably brilliant and prescient. The place to begin there is Amusing Ourselves to Death. And if you just haven't read it, it is not just a classic, but it is much more relevant to our world today than almost anything being written today.

Just a straightforward argument in Neil Postman's great book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he says that the thing television is going to do to politics is make us believe politics should always be entertaining. And that's going to make politics a space dominated by entertainers.

I give that book to everybody all the time. It blew my mind.

you should check out Brad DeLonge's Slouching Towards Utopia, which came out recently and has been very widely reviewed.

you should check out Brad DeLonge's Slouching Towards Utopia, which came out recently and has been very widely reviewed.

first off, Brad DeLong, my friend and economist and historian, has this wonderful book called Slouching Towards Utopia, which is a history of what he calls the long 20th century. And if you just want to understand how the world changed from... He says that 1870 was the pivot point of history. You've got to read that book.

He is the author of a big important new book called Slouching Towards Utopia.

And this book is about the wave of economic growth that transformed the world from 1870 to 2010. I have a lot to say about this book. It is ambitious, and it is strange, and it will leave you with lots of interesting thoughts and stories you didn't know you want to know.

Brad DeLong's book called Slouching Toward Utopia, which is a kind of a broad-based history of economic growth over the course of the long 20th century, is really, really good.

you should check out Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia, which came out recently and has been very widely reviewed and make up your own mind.

Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia, which is I think a really remarkable and powerful placing of all of economic history in perspective that gives a sense that at some level I have known but never appreciated of how profoundly different the 20th century was than all other centuries and points towards the combined power of science and markets to change the world profoundly in sometimes in some ways for good and sometimes in some ways for ill.

the other book is The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk it's been a bestseller for a very long time for a reason again it shows us unequivocally trauma and emotions again don't just live in the head

The Body Keeps a Score, which is a book about trauma from 2014, was back up near the top of the New York Times list. It's number one as I write this, the book's 147th week on the paperback nonfiction list.

The Body Keeps a Score, it is a searing read about the way trauma disconnects our minds and our bodies. It's pretty clearly written with a professional audience in mind.

The Body Keeps a Score is one of those books people have told me to read for a long time, but I thought I knew what it was about.

So The Body Keeps Score has, I mean, as a book, it's a phenomenon, as a social meme, it's a phenomenon.

It was astonishing to me reading some of the stories in the book.

The Body Keeps a Score, which is a book about trauma from 2014, was back up near the top of the New York Times list. It's number one as I write this, the book's 147th week on the paperback nonfiction list.

The Body Keeps a Score, it is a searing read about the way trauma disconnects our minds and our bodies. It's pretty clearly written with a professional audience in mind.

The Body Keeps Score has, I mean, as a book, it's a phenomenon, as a social meme, it's a phenomenon.

But then when I read it, what really struck me about it is how much of the book is about not just how the body keeps a score, but how and why the mind hides the score.

The Body Keeps a Score, which is a book about trauma from 2014, was back up near the top of the New York Times list. It's number one as I write this, the book's 147th week on the paperback nonfiction list.

The Body Keeps a Score, it is a searing read about the way trauma disconnects our minds and our bodies. It's pretty clearly written with a professional audience in mind.

The Body Keeps a Score is one of those books people have told me to read for a long time, but I thought I knew what it was about.

The Body Keeps Score has, I mean, as a book, it's a phenomenon, as a social meme, it's a phenomenon.

Vessel van der Kolk, your book is The Body Keeps the Score. It's remarkable.

The Body Keeps a Score, which is a book about trauma from 2014, was back up near the top of the New York Times list. It's number one as I write this, the book's 147th week on the paperback nonfiction list.

The Body Keeps a Score, it is a searing read about the way trauma disconnects our minds and our bodies. It's pretty clearly written with a professional audience in mind.

The Body Keeps a Score is one of those books people have told me to read for a long time, but I thought I knew what it was about. I'd heard it discussed so many times and I'd read it written about.

So The Body Keeps Score has, I mean, as a book, it's a phenomenon, as a social meme, it's a phenomenon.

This was a real epiphany for me in reading your book because you read about cases like this, you read about false memories...

The Body Keeps a Score, which is a book about trauma from 2014, was back up near the top of the New York Times list. It's number one as I write this, the book's 147th week on the paperback nonfiction list.

The Body Keeps a Score, it is a searing read about the way trauma disconnects our minds and our bodies.

The Body Keeps a Score is one of those books people have told me to read for a long time, but I hadn't read it.

The Body Keeps Score has, I mean, as a book, it's a phenomenon... I felt like I knew what it said, even though I hadn't read it until recently.

But then when I read it, what really struck me about it is how much of the book is about not just how the body keeps a score, but how and why the mind hides the score.

Barbara Kingsolver's book, Demon Copperhead... she writes this book that's, you know, really based in Appalachia and just really helps people to understand much more the nuance and complexity of what's going on in one place in rural America.

today I want to share one of my favorite conversations ... about her amazing book, Demon Copperhead, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

In 2023, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was won by ... Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

It's a beautiful book. It's a wrenching book. I routinely had to stop reading because I was so fused with the character and the story.

It was finally with Demon Copperhead that I could tell the most Appalachian story I've ever told.

Demon Copperhead is my attempt to speak to people. I wanted it to be a window and a mirror, as they say books can be.

My second recommendation would be Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which came out a couple of years ago and I think won the Pulitzer. And it's a beautiful novel that's loosely based or sort of an update of David Copperfield that I think, besides being extraordinarily written, has some tremendous political insights in it as well.

Demon Copperhead was the only novel I read twice last year.

In 2023, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction was won by two novels, Trust by Hernn Daz and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

It's a beautiful book. It's a wrenching book. It's a book that I routinely had to stop reading because I was so fused with the character and so fused with the story.

Demon Copperhead is my attempt to speak to people.

A fourth fiction book that I loved this summer is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

Heather McGhee is the author of the remarkable book, The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.

When I was traveling the country for what would become my book, The Sum of Us, I spent a lot of time talking to people about aspects of their lives that they're experiencing as increasingly unaffordable private costs.

There's this really incredible groundbreaking book called The Sum of Us that I really highly recommend.

Heather McGhee is the author of the remarkable book, The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.

When I was traveling the country for what would become my book, The Sum of Us, I spent a lot of time talking to people about aspects of their lives that they're experiencing as increasingly unaffordable private costs.

There's this really incredible groundbreaking book called The Sum of Us that I really highly recommend.

Marissa Baradaran's book, Color of Money, Alexis Harris's book, Pound of Flesh, and Heather McGee's The Sum of Us.

the most important part of this is Heather McGhee's in her book, The Sum of Us, right? Her opening example of people filling the swimming pool with concrete rather than desegregating the swimming pool.

Heather McGee recently demonstrated in her new book, The Sum of Us, that structural racism has not just harmed people of color. It's also harmed white people.

I would recommend Heather McGee's The Sum of Us.

The metaphor at the center of the book is this idea of the drained public pool.

I wrote this book because I think it's important to talk about the benefits of moving beyond drained pool politics for all people, including white people.

And your book, of course, is The Sum of Us. And everybody, including Joe Biden, should read it. It's really fantastic.

author of the great book on post911 politics Reign of Terror

I've been thinking lately about something that Spencer Ackerman, author of the book Reign of Terror, which is I think the best book by far on how 911 deranged America, something that he said, which is that the essence of the politics of 911 was, quote, to make scandalous the presentation of context.

Spencer Ackerman, who was on the show a few weeks ago, gets it in his book Reign of Terror, which is a tremendous prohibition in the American foreign policy conversation about taking seriously the things said and the rationales given by those who attack us.

Spencer Ackerman, who was on the show a few weeks ago, gets it in his book Reign of Terror, which is there is a tremendous prohibition in the American foreign policy conversation about taking seriously the things said and the rationales given by those who attack us.

Spencer Ackerman, who was on the show a few weeks ago, gets it in his book Reign of Terror, which is there is a tremendous prohibition in the American foreign policy conversation about taking seriously the things said and the rationales given by those who attack us.

But now he's out with a new book, his first book, Reign of Terror, How the 911 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump.

Spencer Ackerman, your book is Reign of Terror.

John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the great economists of the New Deal era, writing The Affluent Society, which is all about the problems of the society where now there is much more plenty, but what makes life worth living has been eroded.

You can read The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, and he's very interested in this question.

I still like John Kenneth Galbraith The Affluent Society a lot in part for these reasons.

When Galbraith wrote that book The Affluent Society around 1950 it effectively warned that America was squandering its newfound wealth by manufacturing desire.

I'm always thrilled when a podcast gets back into The Affluent Society - I love John Kenneth Galbraith.

I still like John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society a lot in part for these reasons.

I still like John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society a lot in part for these reasons.

When I was in college, a rabbi I knew, he gave me Abraham Joshua Heschel's book, The Sabbath.

And I love that book. I've probably read it a dozen times since.

Heschel's argument is that the modern world is obsessed with questions of space.

Six days a week, we seek to dominate the world. On the seventh day, we try to dominate the self.

And I want to pull in Abraham Joshua Heschel here, who wrote this classic book, The Sabbath, many, many years ago now, decades ago.

When I was in college, a rabbi I knew, he gave me Abraham Joshua Heschel's book, The Sabbath. And I love that book. I've probably read it a dozen times since.

I want to pull in Abraham Joshua Heschel here, wrote this classic book, The Sabbath, many, many years ago now, decades ago.

I recommend Heschel. You should all read The Sabbath.

I'm an unbelievably big fan of Abraham Joshua Heschel's book, The Sabbath, which I've probably read a dozen times and Judith Shulevitz's book, The Sabbath World, I think it's called.

He wrote a book called The Sabbath, which is just one of the most beautiful pieces of biblical commentary that I've ever come across

I've been reading this book by Abraham Joshua Heschel on prayer. And he writes, ...

One of my favorite books of all time is The Sabbath by Rabbi Heschel.

One of my favorite books of all time is The Sabbath by Rabbi Heschel.

She is the author of Lower Ed, The Troubling Rise of ForProfit Colleges in the New Economy and the National Book Award nominee, Thick.

she is the author of Lower Ed, The Troubling Rise of ForProfit Colleges in the New Economy, and the National Book Award nominee, Thick.

She's author of the National Book Award finalist, Thick, and other essays.

A book that has come off the shelf and onto my desk is Tressie McMillan Cottom's Thick and Other Essays.

She's the author of the book Lower Ed and then the wonderful essay collection Thick, which was a National Book Award finalist in 2019.

One of the really challenging essays from Thick, one that I still think about having read it now, I guess a couple of years ago is in the name of beauty...

She's the author of the book Lower Ed and then the wonderful essay collection Thick, which was a National Book Award finalist in 2019.

One of the really challenging essays from Thick, one that I still think about having read it now, I guess a couple of years ago is in the name of beauty and attractiveness...

that's in many ways a point of Richard Powers' The Overstory

The Overstory... I loved The Overstory. I loved it. I've never walked through a forest the same way again.

Barack Obama recommended The Overstory and he said, quote, it changed how I thought about the earth and our place in it.

I don't think anybody who reads The Overstory ever looks at a forest quite the same way again.

There's something about Richard Powers' The Overstory being in big mountains, right?

I loved The Overstory. I loved it. I've never walked through a forest the same way again.

Barack Obama recommended The Overstory and he said, quote, it changed how I thought about the earth and our place in it.

A book I just read, The Overstory by Richard Powers. It's about trees and the relationship of humans to trees. And it's not something I would have immediately thought of, but a friend gave it to me and I started reading it and it changed how I thought about the earth and it changed how I see things.

I ended up being very influenced by Paul Saban's book, Public Citizens.

Paul Sabin's Public Citizen. Sabin is a historian at Yale and the book charts the rise of the public interest movement in the 1960s and 70s. It really focuses on Ralph Nader but shows how Nader's skepticism about government came to be so firmly embedded in our national political and legal culture on both the left and the right.

Paul Sabin talks about it in Public Citizen.

It's a great new book on this called Public Citizens by Paul Sabin.

It's a great new book on this called Public Citizens by Paul Sabin.

The third is one actually that you brought to my attention, which is the book Crash by Adam Tooze, which I think should open the aperture for people about how our economy, all of these decisions are connected to the world in a way that makes everything make a lot more sense.

I would also in terms especially the financial crisis that we talked about a lot I would name Adam Tooze's Crashed which I think is a great book that also goes into some length into the legal structures of CDOs and CDSs.

He's the author of the book Crashed, which for my money is the single best history of the financial crisis, and now of Shutdown, How COVID Shook the World's Economy.

He's the author of the book Crashed, which for my money is the single best history of the financial crisis

He's written a number of books about moments when systems fall apart and new orders emerge, among them Crashed. How a decade of financial crises changed the world.

She's the author of two great books about conservative movement, Messengers of the Right and her new one, Partisans, which I highly recommend.

She's the author of two great books about the conservative movement, Messengers of the Right and her new one, Partisans, which I highly recommend.

Nicole is the author of Messengers of the Right, Conservative Media, and the Transformation of American Politics.

This week, it is Nicole Hammer. Nicole is the author of Messengers of the Right, Conservative Media, and the Transformation of American Politics.

She's the author of the great book on the rise of conservative media, Messengers of the Right, Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

She's the author of the great book on the rise of conservative media, Messengers of the Right, Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

my nineyearold ... said could we read a chapter from Mary Poppins ... the book is so much better than the movie ... especially the later ones like Mary Poppins in the Park.

My nineyearold ... said could we read a chapter from Mary Poppins ... the later ones like Mary Poppins in the Park ... are a much stranger, weirder, darker figure than Julie Andrews.

my nineyearold ... said, could we read a chapter from Mary Poppins? ... when you actually read the Mary Poppins books, especially the later ones, like Mary Poppins in the Park ... Mary Poppins is a much stranger, surreal set of adventures that the children are having.

My nineyearold ... could we read a chapter from Mary Poppins? ... when you actually read the Mary Poppins books, especially the later ones, like Mary Poppins in the Park and Mary Poppins Opens the Door, Mary Poppins is a much stranger, surreal figure.

The Undoing Project ... about the relationship between Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky, but also the ways in which the field evolved that I think is, like, pretty profound and a great story.

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. This book describes the friendship between Kahneman and Tversky, two researchers who've made foundational contributions to the field of behavioral economics.

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis - I love this book because it relates one of the greatest collaborations in the history of psychology between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, describing their personalities, conflicts, and the insights that emerged.

My second recommendation is The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis.

I love this book because it relates one of the greatest collaborations in the history of psychology between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, showing how their friendship and conflicts led to major insights.

And Frankenstein. There's two creators who have created life. Geppetto creates the naughty puppet who redeems himself and then Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein, truly a masterpiece.

I listened to the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It's a great exercise in cognitive empathy, hugely complicating a moral assessment of the situation by looking at things from the eyes of a monster.

I listened to the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley... it's a great exercise in cognitive empathy... it hugely complicates a moral assessment of the situation by looking at things from the eyes of a monster.

I listened to the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It's a great exercise in cognitive empathy... it hugely complicates a moral assessment of the situation by looking at things from the eyes of a monster.

Middlemarch is, by many people's estimate, the greatest English language novel ever written. You can get it for like 20 cents on an ebook version. Public Domain is lovely.

And her most famous novel, you've probably heard of it, is Middlemarch.

Middlemarch is your favorite book.

Middlemarch is your favorite book

my fiveyearold grandson ... said you mean Where the Wild Things Are ... could we read that book at your house.

My fiveyearold grandson ... said you mean Where the Wild Things Are ... that's it the one with the wild things ... that's a fantastic wonderful book.

my fiveyearold grandson ... said, you know, that book that you have at your house with the little boy who has like this white suit and he goes to the island with the monsters on it... you mean Where the Wild Things Are? He said, that's it, the one with the wild things with the monsters.

My fiveyearold grandson ... you mean Where the Wild Things Are? ... He said, that's it, the one with the wild things with the monsters. Do you still have that book?