The Political Books That Help Us Make Sense of 2024

The Washington Roundtable reflects on the books they’ve been reading to understand the 2024 Presidential campaigns and the state of international politics. Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos swap recommendations of works about all things political, from the anger of rural voters to the worldwide rise of authoritarian rule, including a fictionalized imagining of a powerful real-life political family.

Read with the Roundtable: 

“America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators,” by Jacob Heilbrunn

“Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism,” by Rachel Maddow

“The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism,” by Joe Conason

“Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism,” by Brooke Harrington

“The Wizard of the Kremlin,” by Giuliano da Empoli

“The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family,” by Joshua Cohen

“The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq,” by Steve Coll (The New Yorker)

“The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China,” by Minxin Pei

“White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,” by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman

“Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture,” by Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker)

“Romney: A Reckoning,” by McKay Coppins

“The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” by Tim Alberta

“Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind,” by Sarah Posner

“Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and The Far Right,” by Mary Jo McConahay

“Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism,” by Stephen Breyer

“The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court,” by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong

“What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” by Richard Ben Cramer

Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy: “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,” “Theodore Rex,” and “Colonel Roosevelt,” by Edmund Morris

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