An American by choice, Vargas came to the U.S. from the Philippines when he was twelve. He’s lived here for twenty-five years, but his status as undocumented has meant that he’s spent those years feeling unmoored and anxious. He knows no other home but this one, yet can’t feel fully at home in a place where he has to lie to get by. In this eloquent and passionate memoir, Vargas speaks out about the reality of living as an “illegal” immigrant in the U.S. today. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and founder and CEO of the nonprofit media advocacy organization Define American, Vargas makes the incontrovertible case that people should not be defined by their legal status, but by who they are. Vargas is in conversation with fellow Pulitzer recipient Jonathan Capehart, member of The Washington Post’s editorial board, host of the“Cape Up” podcast, and MSNBC contributor.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780062851352

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the national debate over slavery grew more impassioned in the 1840s and 1850s, local brush-fires throughout the nation anticipated the Civil War to come. The halls of Congress, too, saw their share of physical violence, and Freeman, a Yale history professor and cohost of the podcast BackStory, draws on a wide range of sources to document scores of incidents ranging from shouting to shoving matches, fistfights, drawn knives, and even death threats among elected representatives. Her revelatory book tracks a seldom-acknowledged history of incivility in American politics, revises views of familiar figures such as John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, and shows how the era’s reporting of these sensational events led to a new, splashier journalism.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780374154776

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The finale to Feiffer’s inimitable noir trilogy is grand indeed. Told with Feiffer’s subtly-toned yet irrepressible graphics, this homage to noir that began with Kill My Mother and continued with Cousin Joseph unfolds against a Hollywood backdrop rich with politics, back-stabbers, femme fatales, and more. As this final volume opens, it’s 1953. Tinseltown is haunted by spooks of all sorts, both supernatural and political. The witch hunts are in high gear and Archie Goldman, of Goldman and Mother, Confidential Investigators, is searching for a screenplay that reveals a real-world conspiracy behind the Hollywood blacklist. But is the film itself truth or a fake? And in a town where almost everyone has something to hide, is there reason for the paranoia or is it all another con?

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781631493133

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, José Andrés arrived on the island and started to cook. Andrés, whose 29 restaurants have earned him Michelin Stars and two James Beard “Outstanding Chef” awards, dropped everything to feed the people of Puerto Rico as they scrambled to rebuild their infrastructure and economy. Andrés cooked paella in parking lots and served sancocho at a friend’s destroyed restaurant, ultimately feeding hundreds of thousands of people. At the same time, he confronted the broken, wasteful crisis-management systems that made his cooking so necessary. We Fed an Island movingly describes his experiences in Puerto Rico, and introduces readers to the networks of community activists feeding the island to this day. A portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to the Chef Relief Network of World Central Kitchen for efforts in Puerto Rico and beyond. Andrés is in conversation with Tim Carman, food reporter at The Washington Post.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780062864482

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Kerry has devoted his life to public service. Since he testified in front of Congress as a decorated young Vietnam veteran disillusioned with the war, he’s placed himself at the heart of American political life, serving as a five-term Senator and as Barack Obama’s second Secretary of State. Every Day Is Extra is a moving, candid account of his time in politics, and a forceful testimony about the importance of diplomacy, leadership, and collaboration in the face of the myriad challenges the United States faces today.

Kerry is in conversation with David Ignatius, associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781501178955

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan has been a White House correspondent for the American Urban Radio Networks since the Clinton administration, but with Trump’s arrival she has become part of the story she’s covering. Her new book is both a reporter’s inside view of the unconventional protocol in the Trump White House, with all the Tweets, policy reversals, and sudden personnel changes, and an intimate look at what it’s like to be targeted by Trump, who has repeatedly responded to Ryan’s serious questions about urgent issues with shaming and insults. Ryan is also the author of The Presidency in Black and White and At Mama’s Knee, and in 2017 she was named the National Association of Black Journalists Journalist of the Year.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781538113363

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A longtime foreign correspondent, Hedges has reported from more than fifty countries. His latest book is a profound exploration of one of the most troubled: today’s United States. Hedges, author of American Fascists and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, cites the opioid crisis, the increases in gambling and magical thinking, and the explosion of xenophobia as symptoms of a society that has lost hope. He traces this disillusionment to the twin ills of a de facto corporate coup d’état and a failed democracy. The anger and frustration these have spawned helped bring Trump to power and Hedges issues a passionate call to action to reverse them.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9781501152672

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pyenson is a paleontologist and “reading whale bones is what I do,” he says. These bones have told some amazing stories: whales outweigh dinosaurs and are the largest creatures ever to have lived on Earth, and their songs can travel some 900 miles underwater. But while we know whales descended from four-legged land-dwelling animals the size of a dog, we don’t know when and how they developed their tremendous sizes, what’s to stop them from getting still larger, or if they can adapt to climate change. The curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Pyenson takes us through the collection—the largest in the world—with attendant lessons on whale anatomy, feeding habits, and migratory range, as well as on field trips to Panama, Alaska, and the Hvalfjörður whaling station west of Iceland.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780735224568

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

P&P’s series of teach-ins addressing the most urgent political problems of our day returns with a discussion of gun control in the United States. What are the best ways to prevent further deaths by gun violence in this country? What are the most rapidly attainable ways? What actions are available for private citizens to take, and how can we keep ourselves and our communities safe? Participants will include Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign; Zion Kelly, gun control activist and March For Our Lives speaker; and Craig Whitney, journalist and author of Living with Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From being the only African-American Muslim wearing a hijab in her hometown of Maplewood, New Jersey, to being the first veiled American woman to compete for the U.S. in the Olympics, Muhammad has always stood out, as much for her prodigious talent as for her courage and faith. Though she started fencing at the late age of thirteen, she quickly pushed beyond state and collegiate championships to become a five-time Senior World medalist and Olympic bronze medalist. But her athletic triumphs are only one part of Muhammad’s prodigious achievements. Her memoir is an unflinching account of how she turned around the bias and opposition she faced from the beginning, earning a spot on TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People In the World, serving as a sports ambassador for the U.S. State Department, and inspiring the first hijabi Barbie.

Muhammad is in conversation with Brittany Packnett, Vice President of National Community Alliances for Teach for America, co-founder of the policy platform to end police violence Campaign Zero, video columnist for Mic News, and current Aspen Institute Education fellow.

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780316518963

https://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780316477000

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices