The Age of Grievance

From bestselling author and longtime New York Times columnist Frank Bruni comes a lucid, powerful examination of the ways in which grievance has come to define our current culture and politics, on both the right and left. The twists and turns of American politics are unpredictable, but the tone is a troubling given. It's one of grievance. More and more Americans are convinced that they're losing because somebody else is winning. More and more tally their slights, measure their misfortune, and assign particular people responsibility for it. The blame game has become the country's most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb. Grievance needn't be bad. It has done enormous good. The United States is a nation born of grievance, and across the nearly two hundred and fifty years of our existence as a country, grievance has been the engine of morally urgent change. But what happens when all sorts of grievances--the greater ones, the lesser ones, the authentic, the invented--are jumbled together? When people take their grievances to lengths that they didn't before? A violent mob storms the US Capitol, rejecting the results of a presidential election. Conspiracy theories flourish. Fox News knowingly peddles lies in the service of profit. College students chase away speakers, and college administrators dismiss instructors for dissenting from orthodoxy. Benign words are branded hurtful; benign gestures are deemed hostile. And there's a potentially devastating erosion of the civility, common ground, and compromise necessary for our democracy to survive. How did we get here? What does it say about us, and where does it leave us? The Age of Grievance examines these critical questions and charts a path forward.

About the Author :
Frank Bruni is the author of five books, including New York Times bestseller Ambling into History, and co-author of two other books. He has been a prominent journalist for more than three decades, including more than twenty-five years at the New York Times, many of them as a nationally renowned op-ed columnist appearing frequently as a television commentator. He was also a White House correspondent for the New York Times, its Rome bureau chief, and, for five years, its chief restaurant critic. In 2021, he became a full professor at Duke University, teaching media-oriented classes in the school of public policy. He continues to write his popular weekly newsletter for the Times and to produce occasional essays as one of the newspaper's official contributing opinion writers. Frank Bruni is the author of five books, including New York Times bestseller Ambling into History, and co-author of two other books. He has been a prominent journalist for more than three decades, including more than twenty-five years at the New York Times, many of them as a nationally renowned op-ed columnist appearing frequently as a television commentator. He was also a White House correspondent for the New York Times, its Rome bureau chief, and, for five years, its chief restaurant critic. In 2021, he became a full professor at Duke University, teaching media-oriented classes in the school of public policy. He continues to write his popular weekly newsletter for the Times and to produce occasional essays as one of the newspaper's official contributing opinion writers.

Review :
"In this feverish era for America and the world, Frank Bruni is the doctor we need. His diagnoses of our fractured politics are clear and compelling. His prescriptions are designed to heal. And his bedside manner--the wise, charming voice that has made him one of America's most admired commentators--helps the medicine taste like sugar." -- "David Von Drehle, New York Times bestselling author"