Democracy in Crisis: 15 Books on Why and How to Preserve Democracy

From the hosts of Pod Save America comes a step-by-step guide on how to get informed and get involved in politics during a time of dread and uncertainty (if not outright peril). In ten steps, the former Obama White House staffers will tell you where to donate, where to volunteer, and how to get involved in politics without losing your mind.

In a snappy combo of self-help and political manifesto, this book will speak to anyone looking for hope for democracy - and a meaningful way to get involved.

An expert look at how autocracies around the world work together not for ideological goals but to shore up power, wealth, and impunity. Applebaum calls for democracies of the world to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.

Historian and author of the popular newsletter, “Letters From an American,” Heather Cox Richardson’s latest provides a compelling description of how misleading histories and narratives have been weaponized by a small but influential groups of elites to push America away from democracy and towards authoritarianism. Virginia Heffernan of the Washington Post calls it, "The most lucid just-so story for Trump's rise I've ever heard. It's magisterial."

The merits and flaws of the Constitution have reached peak debate as of late. This book raises the sobering conclusion that the document is a threat to American democracy and must be dramatically changed or replaced.

Blending history and analysis, a conservative scholar puts forth an argument that the Constitution can help repair our broken civic culture and rescue our malfunctioning politics.

Blending scholarship with accessible analysis of Constitutional law, this book underscores the ambition of the Reconstruction Amendments, which were adopted in the wake of the Civil War and sought to build a democracy with equal membership for marginalized people. The author argues the law must serve to make that promise of democracy real in spirit, not in following the original interpretation of a bygone era.

"Readers of every political stripe would benefit from hearing out these well-reasoned arguments," wrote Kirkus Review about this book from former president of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass. Haass argues that for American democracy to not only survive, but thrive, what it means to be a citizen must be expanded to include not just the rights we are owed, but also the habits that we owe to each other and our country's institutions.

Tthis insider account of the activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens working to fight for democracy—from disinformation fighters to a leader of Black Lives Matter to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and more—is by the bestselling author of Winners Take All.

Two Harvard professors argue that to understand why America’s democracy is in such a precarious position, you have to begin with the Constitution, which is structured in favor of partisan minority factions. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin calls it a “must-read book” which explains how Republicans, “unable to appeal to a broader share of the electorate beyond diminishing numbers of White, rural Christians, have found ways to exploit, abuse and, indeed, break majority governance.”