By Ande Jacobson

Heather Cox Richardson’s newest book, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, was released on 26 September 2023 and is a must read to understand how we got to where we are, the dangers we face, how Americans have strengthened our democracy in times of yore, and finally, how we can again counter the authoritarian threat and reclaim our democracy from those who would abolish it forever. For those who regularly read Professor Richardson’s nightly newsletter, Letters from an American, there isn’t a lot of new material in this book. What is new is how Richardson has condensed the journey and the solution into this tight volume. This isn’t a big book. In fact, it’s a collection of 30 essays of six to eight pages apiece. Bounding these essays are a Forward introducing the material and discussing how the book came about and a Conclusion at the end tying together the pieces of how we could go about recovering and strengthening our democracy going forward. Richardson is honest that she can’t say it’s a sure thing, but the vast majority of Americans want our democracy to survive. The question is whether the overwhelming majority of people will pull together to make it so. Only time will tell. Continue reading →