Reviews
"Anand Giridharadas shows the way we get real progressive change in America - by refusing to write others off, building more welcoming movements, and rededicating ourselves to the work of changing minds. If you sometimes despair at America's capacity to achieve the common good, this book is a welcome and inspiring tonic." --Robert B. Reich, author of The System " The Persuaders is a must-read book on how we can beat back the authoritarian menace, deliver real progress, and win a just future for all. It is a bracing wake-up call for those of us in the pro-democracy cause to change our ways if we want to win. It will teach you how to win others over while standing firm and how to reach loved ones who have succumbed to cults, lies, and demagogues. Our best days can still lie ahead of us. This brilliant book is a map to get there." --Ro Khanna, Member of Congress "Giridharadas has already established himself as a major chronicler of one of our great divides -- the disparities of income and opportunity that undergird American plutocracy. Now he turns his attention to another kind of gulf, one that's just as endemic and dangerous: ideology. It's one thing to diagnose and quite another to offer real solutions, but in this wide-ranging and profound book, Giridharadas explores real strategies for bridging these divides by finding a language in which we can speak to one another, and persuade. Reading The Persuaders I felt something I hadn't in quite a while: a tremor of hope." --Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain "At the heart of The Persuaders is an immense spirit of generosity. With clarity and nuance, Anand Giridharadas paints portraits of people who are pushing the boundaries of traditional political paradigms, and whose work serves as a clarion call for all of us to imagine a new set of political possibilities. It is both a challenge and an affirmation. This is a guidebook to a better world." --Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed " The Persuaders provides the urgent wisdom we need to fix our broken world. It is a call for an army of persuaders--the teachers, listeners, and peacemakers willing to take the necessary risks to have a working society again. In a culture where everyone we disagree with is written-off, Giridharadas asks us to write our neighbors, friends, and family members back into our lives. This is the book every reader needs now, because we need each other more than ever." --Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires, "Anand Giridharadas shows the way we get real progressive change in America - by refusing to write others off, building more welcoming movements, and rededicating ourselves to the work of changing minds. If you sometimes despair at America's capacity to achieve the common good, this book is a welcome and inspiring tonic." --Robert B. Reich, author of The System " The Persuaders is a must-read book on how we can beat back the authoritarian menace, deliver real progress, and win a just future for all. It is a bracing wake-up call for those of us in the pro-democracy cause to change our ways if we want to win. It will teach you how to win others over while standing firm and how to reach loved ones who have succumbed to cults, lies, and demagogues. Our best days can still lie ahead of us. This brilliant book is a map to get there." --Ro Khanna, Member of Congress "Giridharadas has already established himself as a major chronicler of one of our great divides -- the disparities of income and opportunity that undergird American plutocracy. Now he turns his attention to another kind of gulf, one that's just as endemic and dangerous: ideology. It's one thing to diagnose and quite another to offer real solutions, but in this wide-ranging and profound book, Giridharadas explores real strategies for bridging these divides by finding a language in which we can speak to one another, and persuade. Reading The Persuaders I felt something I hadn't in quite a while: a tremor of hope." --Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain "At the heart of The Persuaders is an immense spirit of generosity. With clarity and nuance, Anand Giridharadas paints portraits of people who are pushing the boundaries of traditional political paradigms, and whose work serves as a clarion call for all of us to imagine a new set of political possibilities. It is both a challenge and an affirmation. This is a guidebook to a better world." --Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed " The Persuaders provides the urgent wisdom we need to fix our broken world. It is a call for an army of persuaders--the teachers, listeners, and peacemakers willing to take the necessary risks to have a working society again. In a culture where everyone we disagree with is written-off, Giridharadas asks us to write our neighbors, friends, and family members back into our lives. This is the book every reader needs now, because we need each other more than ever." --Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, "Anand Giridharadas shows the way we get real progressive change in America - by refusing to write others off, building more welcoming movements, and rededicating ourselves to the work of changing minds. If you sometimes despair at America's capacity to achieve the common good, this book is a welcome and inspiring tonic." --Robert B. Reich, author of The System
Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy--from disinformation fighters to a leader of Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more--by the best-selling author of Winners Take All and award-winning former New York Times columnist "Anand Giridharadas shows the way we get real progressive change in America--by refusing to write others off, building more welcoming movements, and rededicating ourselves to the work of changing minds." --Robert B. Reich, best-selling author of The System The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people's minds in order to change things. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Americans increasingly write one another off instead of seeking to win one another over. Debates are framed in moralistic terms, with enemies battling the righteous. Movements for justice build barriers to entry, instead of on-ramps. Political parties focus on mobilizing the faithful rather than wooing the skeptical. And leaders who seek to forge coalitions are labeled sellouts. In The Persuaders, Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. We meet a leader of Black Lives Matter; a trailblazer in the feminist resistance to Trumpism; white parents at a seminar on raising adopted children of color; Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; a team of door knockers with an uncanny formula for changing minds on immigration; an ex-cult member turned QAnon deprogrammer; and, hovering menacingly offstage, Russian operatives clandestinely stoking Americans' fatalism about one another. As the book's subjects grapple with how to call out threats and injustices while calling in those who don't agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a fracturing country., NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy--from disinformation fighters to a leader of Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more--by the best-selling author of Winners Take All and award-winning former New York Times columnist "Anand Giridharadas shows the way we get real progressive change in America--by refusing to write others off, building more welcoming movements, and rededicating ourselves to the work of changing minds." --Robert B. Reich, best-selling author of The System The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people's minds in order to change things. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Americans increasingly write one another off instead of seeking to win one another over. Debates are framed in moralistic terms, with enemies battling the righteous. Movements for justice build barriers to entry, instead of on-ramps. Political parties focus on mobilizing the faithful rather than wooing the skeptical. And leaders who seek to forge coalitions are labeled sellouts. In The Persuaders, Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. We meet a leader of Black Lives Matter; a trailblazer in the feminist resistance to Trumpism; white parents at a seminar on raising adopted children of color; Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; a team of door knockers with an uncanny formula for changing minds on immigration; an ex-cult member turned QAnon deprogrammer; and, hovering menacingly offstage, Russian operatives clandestinely stoking Americans' fatalism about one another. As the book's subjects grapple with how to call out threats and injustices while calling in those who don't agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a fracturing country.
