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Table of Contents
About The Book
The Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at The New York Times explores how people in power reveal themselves through their books and writings and, in so doing, illuminates the personal, political, and cultural conflicts driving Washington and the nation.
As a long-time book critic and columnist in Washington, Carlos Lozada dissects all manner of texts: commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional inquiries to understand the controversies animating life in the capital. He also reads copious books by politicians and top officials: tell-all accounts by administration insiders, campaign biographies by candidates longing for high office, revisionist memoirs by those leaving those offices behind. With this provocative essay collection, Lozada argues that no matter how carefully political figures sanitize their experiences, positions, and records, no matter how diligently they present themselves in the best and safest and most electable light, they almost always let slip the truth. They show us their faults and blind spots, their ambitions and compromises, their underlying motives and insecurities. Whether they mean to or not, they tell us who they really are.
In his memoirs and speeches, Barack Obama constantly invoked the power and meaning of his life story, Lozada notes, a sign of how the former president capitalized on his personal symbolism, trying to transform it from inspiration on the campaign trail into an all-purpose governing tool. In a soliloquy about his hair in a self-help book published two decades ago, Donald Trump revealed not just his vanity, Lozada explains, but his utter isolation from the world, long before he entered the bubble of the White House. In deft and lacerating prose, Lozada interprets the unresolved tensions of Hillary Clinton’s ideological beliefs. He imagines the wonderful memoir George H.W. Bush could have given us but instead left scattered in throughout various books and letters. He explores why Kamala Harris has struggled to carve out a distinctive role as vice president. He explains how Ron DeSantis’s pitch to America is just a list of enemies. And he even glimpses what Vladimir Putin fears the most, and why he seeks conflict with the West. He does so all through their own books, and their own words.
Lozada reads these books so you don’t have to. The Washington Book is the perfect guide to the state of our politics, and then men and women who dominate the terrain. It explores the construction of personal identity, the delusions of leadership, and that mix of subservience and ambition that can define a life in politics. The more we read the stories of Washington, Lozada contends, the clearer our understanding of the competing visions of our country.
As a long-time book critic and columnist in Washington, Carlos Lozada dissects all manner of texts: commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional inquiries to understand the controversies animating life in the capital. He also reads copious books by politicians and top officials: tell-all accounts by administration insiders, campaign biographies by candidates longing for high office, revisionist memoirs by those leaving those offices behind. With this provocative essay collection, Lozada argues that no matter how carefully political figures sanitize their experiences, positions, and records, no matter how diligently they present themselves in the best and safest and most electable light, they almost always let slip the truth. They show us their faults and blind spots, their ambitions and compromises, their underlying motives and insecurities. Whether they mean to or not, they tell us who they really are.
In his memoirs and speeches, Barack Obama constantly invoked the power and meaning of his life story, Lozada notes, a sign of how the former president capitalized on his personal symbolism, trying to transform it from inspiration on the campaign trail into an all-purpose governing tool. In a soliloquy about his hair in a self-help book published two decades ago, Donald Trump revealed not just his vanity, Lozada explains, but his utter isolation from the world, long before he entered the bubble of the White House. In deft and lacerating prose, Lozada interprets the unresolved tensions of Hillary Clinton’s ideological beliefs. He imagines the wonderful memoir George H.W. Bush could have given us but instead left scattered in throughout various books and letters. He explores why Kamala Harris has struggled to carve out a distinctive role as vice president. He explains how Ron DeSantis’s pitch to America is just a list of enemies. And he even glimpses what Vladimir Putin fears the most, and why he seeks conflict with the West. He does so all through their own books, and their own words.
Lozada reads these books so you don’t have to. The Washington Book is the perfect guide to the state of our politics, and then men and women who dominate the terrain. It explores the construction of personal identity, the delusions of leadership, and that mix of subservience and ambition that can define a life in politics. The more we read the stories of Washington, Lozada contends, the clearer our understanding of the competing visions of our country.
About The Author
Photograph © Bill O'Leary
Carlos Lozada is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and cohost of the Matter of Opinion podcast. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and is the author of What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (February 27, 2024)
- Length: 416 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668050736
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Raves and Reviews
“A monumental read... So f---ing good.”
– The Guardian
“A rich chronicle... The Washington Book didn’t persuade me to read more Washington books. But it did encourage me to read more Carlos Lozada.”
– The New York Times
“This expansive collection by Lozada echoes the work of the early 20th-century literary critic Edmund Wilson.”
– Axios
“Scholarship at its finest, bolstered by inspired writing and thorough research... Lozada deserves a second Pulitzer — for public service.”
– The Washington Independent Review of Books
“An absolutely original genius.”
– Bob Woodward, The Washington Post
“The Washington Book marks Carlos Lozada as the great D.C. essayist of our time, at once unsparing and gentle, erudite and entertaining. He punctures the self-puffing, the vaguely corrupt and the seriously criminal with charming alacrity, but he also makes accessible serious ideas about power and policy that Washington must somehow get right, in spite of itself.”
– Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap
“Carlos Lozada is a triple threat: imaginative thinker, uncompromising critic, impeccable writer line for line. Also? Does his homework and plays fair.”
– Jennifer Senior, Atlantic staff writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing
“Carlos Lozada wants you to take Washington seriously – and literally. In his incisive new essay collection, the New York Times’s most bookish opinion columnist shows that actually sitting down and reading the tomes that pour forth from America's political class is more than worth it. Perceptive, dry-witted and notably nonpartisan, Lozada nails the vanities of the powerful and the follies of their times. A great read, from a great reader.”
– Susan Glasser, New Yorker staff writer and co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Divider
“We call what Carlos Lozada does ‘book criticism,’ but that’s only for lack of a better term. He’s an interpreter of our political and cultural identity. Books are his means to that end. And he brings to his work unmatched intellect and eloquence.”
– Martin Baron, author of Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post
“One of the reasons I want to write another book is the hope that Carlos Lozada, the smartest literary critic working today, might review it. On the other hand, I’m terrified that he might review it.”
– Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!
“Lozada’s strengths as a critic are obvious. He is charming, funny, and light on his feet, and his descriptions are exceptionally clear and pithy. . . . This aphoristic style cuts to the quick of complex ideas.”
– Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
"Those who like to read about national politics will be rewarded, and even entertained, by Lozada’s pages.”
– Kirkus Reviews
"[Lozada's] insights are piquant and enlightening, the result being an enhanced understanding of the complicated mess that is American politics.”
– Booklist
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Washington Book Hardcover 9781668050736
- Author Photo (jpg): Carlos Lozada Photograph © Bill O'Leary(0.1 MB)
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