A Reunited States Reading List

Want to dig deeper into the issue of political polarization? These articles and books, suggested by Issue Brief author Loren McArthur, and will get you started.

Articles and Reseearch Papers

Brooks, David. "Collapsing Levels of Trust Are Devastating America." The Atlantic (October 5, 2020). (Paywall)

Haidt, Jonathan. "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid." The Atlantic (April 11. 2022). (Paywall)

Hawkins, Steven, Yudkin, Daniel, et. al. "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America's Polarized Landscape." More in Common (2018).

Kleinfeld, Rachael. "Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (September 23, 2023).

Kolbert, Elizabeth. "How Politics Got So Polarized." The New Yorker (December 27, 2021). (Paywall)

Zuckerman, Ethan. “What is Digital Public Infrastructure.” Center for Journalism & Liberty (November 17, 2020). 

Books

Abramowitz, Alan. The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation, and the Rise of Donald Trump. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018. 

Berry, Jeffrey and Sobieraj, Sarah. The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Kalmoe, Nathan and Mason, Lilliana. Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2022.\

Levitsky, Steven and Ziblatt, Daniel. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2018.

Maxwell, Angie and Shields, Todd. The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

McCarty, Nolan. Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Putnam, Robert. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

Putnam, Robert. The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020.

Tarnoff, Ben. Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future. London and New York: Verso, 2022.