Maddow

This weekend, author and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow took the podium to discuss her new book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. To begin the night, Maddow read a short excerpt proving that her published prose is every bit as witty, informative, and accessible as her prime time anchoring of The Rachel Maddow Show. Though she's arguably one of the most left-leaning journalists in American media, Maddow describes her book as bipartisan--not about Republican issues or Democratic issues--but about American issues; that is, how America moved from being a country hesitant to go to war to waging multiple wars, and how we evolved from a nation in which everyone contributed their part to the war effort to an era when war carries on indefinitely with little or no bearing on the every day lives of civilian families, while the brunt of the cost is on military families.

The rest of the evening, Maddow engaged in a lengthy Q&A session with the audience, before signing books and talking to fans. She was as she appears on screen, brilliant, funny, self-deprecating, and always very gracious. The event was sponsored by Politics and Prose Bookstore and the 6th and I Synagogue, a partnership that regularly brings writers, journalists, and political leaders to engage with the public in intellectual discourse.