Publishers Weekly
07/31/2023
In this muddled survey, Boston College historian Richardson (To Make Men Free) analyzes the history of the United States from its origins through the present day, reframing many of the nation’s major internal conflicts as part of an ongoing clash between “liberal democracy” and emerging “authoritarianism.” Richardson touches briefly on such events as the Civil War, the political fight over the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, arguing that these were moments when authoritarianism was thwarted by defenders of democracy who drew political strength from the liberal Enlightenment-era principles in the country’s founding documents. But according to Richardson, from the 1950s onward authoritarianism has been on the rise (she cites McCarthyism and the Reagan administration as big steps in that direction), culminating with the election of Donald Trump. At one point, Richardson acknowledges that her argument amounts to a relabeling of “conservativism” as “authoritarianism”: She explains that political opponents of the New Deal, who rallied behind a document called “The Conservative Manifesto” in the 1930s, were misappropriating the label “conservative” (which should only be fairly used, Richardson asserts, as a term for people who oppose something “radical”—which, the reader is left to assume, the New Deal wasn’t), and thus all political conservatives since have also been mislabeled. Meanwhile, she never convincingly justifies the use of the term “authoritarianism” to refer to, for example, political opponents of civil rights for African Americans. Readers will be perplexed. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
The Washington Post's "50 Best NonFiction Books of 2023"
Kirkus Review's "2023 Best NonFiction Books of the Year"
“[Democracy Awakening] is the most lucid just-so story for Trump’s rise I’ve ever heard. It’s magisterial.” –Virginia Heffernan, Washington Post
“Necessary U.S. history ... an excellent primer for anyone who needs the important facts of the last 150 years of American history – and how they got us to the sorry place we inhabit today.” –Guardian US
“Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening is an important addition to the burgeoning literature and scholarship on what I have characterized as America’s Third Reconstruction…she is at her best simply telling us the story of how we came to be living on the brink of ending our nearly 250-year democratic experiment.”
–Peniel Joseph, Democracy
"A fresh historical interpretation of American democracy and its many challenges...It’s an unusual but effective structure, allowing Richardson to do what she does best: show her readers how history and the present are in constant conversation. Reminding us that 'how it comes out rests…in our own hands,' Richardson empowers us for the chapters yet to come."
—Kirkus Review (starred review)
“Engaging and highly accessible.”—Boston Globe
“This is a vibrant, and essential history of America's unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals. From yesterday's enslavers to today's authoritarians, it shows how bad actors have always tried to twist history to serve their own purposes, but again and again, less powerful challengers have risen and often won. It's both a cause for hope, and a call to arms.”
—Jane Mayer, author Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
“With her characteristic powerful prose, Heather Richardson explores the raging (in every sense of the word) political, cultural, and social forces that an elite minority has fostered to divide Americans, erode democracy, and rise to power. By reclaiming this history, she reminds us that democracy is a process, not an endpoint — and that it demands our efforts now, more than ever.”
—Joanne Freeman, Professor of History at Yale University and author of Field of Blood
"No one understands the warp and woof of the complicated tapestry that is the United States, no one apprehends the undertow and disparate forces that have directed the tides of American politics, no one forges the connections between then and now better than Heather Cox Richardson does. The result is a cogent, challenging, thoughtful, riveting and beautiful narrative. Brava!"
—Ken Burns, Filmmaker
“For the last several turbulent years, millions have looked to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily letters for vital historical perspective, wisdom, and moral clarity. In Democracy Awakening, Richardson goes beyond the news cycle to explain how we got here, placing our current political crisis against the age-old struggle to expand civil rights and economic opportunity. What emerges is a brilliant and honest account of our nation’s past and present. If you care about American democracy—and are engaged in the fight to preserve it—this book is a must-read.”
—Preet Bharara, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
AudioFile
Political historian Heather Cox Richardson…narrates with energy and a clear, well-paced style…Richardson’s appealing voice, adept nonfiction cadence, and understated presentation propel the text, making it easy for listeners to appreciate the many facts and dates that range from 1776 to 2023.”
Guardian US
Necessary U.S. history ... an excellent primer for anyone who needs the important facts of the last 150 years of American history – and how they got us to the sorry place we inhabit today.
Washington Post
It’s magisterial.”
Boston Globe
Engaging and highly accessible.
Professor of History at Yale University and author Joanne Freeman
With her characteristic powerful prose, Heather Richardson explores the raging (in every sense of the word) political, cultural, and social forces that an elite minority has fostered to divide Americans, erode democracy, and rise to power. By reclaiming this history, she reminds us that democracy is a process, not an endpoint — and that it demands our efforts now, more than ever.
Washington Post Virginia Heffernan
[Democracy Awakening] is the most lucid just-so story for Trump’s rise I’ve ever heard. It’s magisterial.
author Dark Money: The Hidden History of the B Jane Mayer
This is a vibrant, and essential history of America's unending, enraging and utterly compelling struggle since its founding to live up to its own best ideals. From yesterday's enslavers to today's authoritarians, it shows how bad actors have always tried to twist history to serve their own purposes, but again and again, less powerful challengers have risen and often won. It's both a cause for hope, and a call to arms.
Democracy Peniel Joseph
Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening is an important addition to the burgeoning literature and scholarship on what I have characterized as America’s Third Reconstruction…she is at her best simply telling us the story of how we came to be living on the brink of ending our nearly 250-year democratic experiment.
Filmmaker Ken Burns
No one understands the warp and woof of the complicated tapestry that is the United States, no one apprehends the undertow and disparate forces that have directed the tides of American politics, no one forges the connections between then and now better than Heather Cox Richardson does. The result is a cogent, challenging, thoughtful, riveting and beautiful narrative. Brava!
documentary filmmaker Ken Burns
A cogent, challenging, thoughtful, riveting and beautiful narrative.”
former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Preet Bharara
For the last several turbulent years, millions have looked to Heather Cox Richardson’s daily letters for vital historical perspective, wisdom, and moral clarity. In Democracy Awakening, Richardson goes beyond the news cycle to explain how we got here, placing our current political crisis against the age-old struggle to expand civil rights and economic opportunity. What emerges is a brilliant and honest account of our nation’s past and present. If you care about American democracy—and are engaged in the fight to preserve it—this book is a must-read.
SEPTEMBER 2023 - AudioFile
Political historian Heather Cox Richardson, who is unabashedly pro-democracy and anti-authoritarianism, and known to many from her daily "Letters from an American" newsletter, narrates with energy and a clear, well-paced style. Her performance complements the hallmark way she lays out historical facts. In this book she describes how American democracy has been shaped from its birth through the authoritarianism of the Trump administration and President Biden's attempt to right the ship of state. Richardson's appealing voice, adept nonfiction cadence, and understated presentation propel the text, making it easy for listeners to appreciate the many facts and dates that range from 1776 to 2023. At the end, Richardson reminds us that democracy is ultimately in our hands. S.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2023-06-15
A fresh historical interpretation of American democracy and its many challenges.
Since its birth, the U.S. has been caught between two competing schools of thought, one tending toward authoritarianism and the other seeking to widen its embrace of pluralism. So argues Richardson, a professor of U.S. history, author of How the South Won the Civil War, and creator of the popular Substack newsletter “Letters From an American.” “America is at a crossroads,” she writes. “A country that once stood as the global symbol of democracy has been teetering on the brink of authoritarianism. How did this happen?” In the calm, deliberate prose her newsletter readers will recognize, Richardson traces the rise of the modern right wing from the 1930s, finding its roots in a New Deal–era rejection of governmental intervention. It struggled against the post–World War II liberal consensus but gained ground with Nixon’s Southern Strategy and culminated in Trumpism. The author devotes 10 chapters to the Trump presidency, which she calls “the authoritarian experiment.” Her summary of the excesses of the era is laid out with her trademark combination of passion and restraint, the explicit comparisons to European fascism bolstered, horrifyingly, by Mein Kampf, among other voices from both past and present. However, Richardson doesn’t end with the wreckage left by Trump. Following a dismal recap of the 2021-2022 Supreme Court session, she takes readers back to the nation’s founding, writing about the emergence of our imperfect union and its halting expansion of rights. Never losing sight of the fact that it was “those excluded from an equal seat at the table [who] would redefine what it meant to be an American, keeping a dream of human equality alive,” the author escorts readers to the modern era. It’s an unusual but effective structure, allowing Richardson to do what she does best: show her readers how history and the present are in constant conversation.
Reminding us that “how it comes out rests…in our own hands,” Richardson empowers us for the chapters yet to come.
