Polarization: What Everyone Needs to Know

Author: Nolan McCarty, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Politics and Public Affairs

Red and blue book cover

Publisher: Oxford University Press, July 2019

The 2016 election of Donald J. Trump invoked a time for reflection about the state of American politics and its deep divisions. While the current political climate seems to suggest that extreme views are becoming more popular, McCarty argues that, contrary to popular belief, the 2016 election was a natural outgrowth of 40 years of polarized politics, rather than a significant break with the past. A concise overview of a complex and crucial topic in U.S. politics, this book is for anyone wanting to understand how to repair the cracks in our system.