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• Ellen Fitzpatrick, author of The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency, spoke with KCRW’s Press Play about the women who “made it further than the rest.”
• Robert Crews, author of Afghan Modern, responded to a New York Times “Room for Debate” prompt, “Is America Responsible for Afghan Refugees?”
• Chloe Taft, author of From Steel to Slots: Casino Capitalism in the Postindustrial City, discussed how Bethlehem, PA, tried to balance the rewards of short-term stability with the risks of increased corporate influence on WNUR’s This Is Hell!
• Brooke Harrington, author of the forthcoming Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, wrote in the Atlantic and spoke with PRI’s The World about the Panama Papers.
• An excerpt from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, on how fear continues to poison America, was published at Literary Hub on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

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April 6: The Disfiguring Force of Populism

Today many countries witness waning confidence in core democratic institutions such as parties, parliaments, and elections. Shrinking party membership and increasing estrangement between politicians and voters testify to disillusionment with representative democracy. Politicians are regularly accused—not unjustifiably—of having lost touch with ordinary people’s concerns and made politics into an insipid mainstreamism that chooses to neglect society’s most grave needs and concerns. This anti-political practice is primed to damage democracy, as recognizable proposals are needed that encourage citizens to participate. There is some truth in the general complaint that politics has become…