The Persuaders: Winning Hearts and Minds in a Divided Age

The Persuaders is a New York Times bestseller that explores the crisis of faith in persuasion in America and how it is putting democracy and the planet at risk. It features dissenters who champion persuasion in an age of polarization, such as Black Lives Matter co-founder, feminist resistance to Trumpism, white parents, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, door knockers, and QAnon deprogrammers.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 26 October 2023
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, NEW STATESMAN, AND THE IRISH TIMES

Illuminating and entertaining, even as the world seems to counsel despair, The Persuaders is animated by a sense of possibility. The New York Times

The lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people's minds to enable real change. But America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. People increasingly write each other off instead of seeking to win each other over. Debates are framed in moralistic terms, with enemies battling the righteous. Movements for justice build barriers to entry, instead of on-ramps. Political parties focus on mobilizing the faithful rather than wooing the skeptical. And leaders who seek to forge coalition are labeled sell-outs.

In The Persuaders, bestselling author Anand Giridharadas takes us inside these movements and battles, seeking out the dissenters who continue to champion persuasion in an age of polarization. We meet a co-founder of Black Lives Matter; a leader of the feminist resistance to Trumpism; white parents at a seminar on raising adopted children of color; Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; a team of door knockers with an uncanny formula for changing minds on immigration; and an ex-cult member turned QAnon deprogrammer.

As they grapple with how to call out threats and injustices while calling in those who don't agree with them but just might one day, they point a way to healing, and changing, a broken society.

Weight: 260g
Dimension: 128 x 198 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780141996974