Racial rhetoric has been entwined with government from the start, all the way back to when the enemy was not Obamacare but the Grand Army of the Republic (and further in the past than that: Thomas Jefferson, after all, was derided as 'the Negro President').

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

While writing books about the past, I think about the present. It's not intentional, but somehow my books end up being written under the sign of a political mood.

Rick Perlstein Quotes