Jonathan Rauch

This book will change your life by showing you how life changes.Why does happiness get harder in your 40s? Why do you feel in a slump when you’re successful? Where does this malaise come from? And, most importantly, will it ever end?Drawing on cutting-edge research, award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch answers all these questions. He shows that from our 20s into our 40s, happiness follows a U-shaped trajectory, a “happiness curve,” declining from the optimism of youth into what’s often a long, low slump in middle age, before starting to rise again in our 50s.This isn’t a midlife crisis, though. Rauch reveals that this slump is instead a natural stage of life—and an essential one. By shifting priorities away from competition and toward compassion, it equips you with new tools for wisdom and gratitude to win the third period of life. And Rauch can testify to this personally because it was his own slump, despite acclaim as a journalist and commentator that compelled him to investigate the happiness curve. His own story and the stories of many others from all walks of life—from a steelworker and a limo driver to a telecoms executive and a philanthropist—show how the ordeal of midlife malaise reboots our values and even our brains for a rebirth of gratitude. Full of insights and data and featuring many ways to endure the slump and avoid its perils and traps, The Happiness Curve doesn’t just show you the dark forest of midlife, it helps you find a path through the trees. It also demonstrates how we can—and why we must—do more to help each other through the woods. Midlife is a journey we mustn’t walk alone.

Arming Americans to defend the truth from today's war on factsDisinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: "cancel culture." At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony.In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the "Constitution of Knowledge"--our social system for turning disagreement into truth.By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do--and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone.

Tracing attacks on free speech from Plato's Republic to America's campuses and newsrooms, Jonathan Rauch provides an engaging and provocative attack on those who would limit free thought by restricting free speech. Rauch explores how the system for producing knowledge works in a liberal society, and why it has now become the object of a powerful ideological attack. Moving beyond the First Amendment, he defends the morality, rather than the legality, of an intellectual regime that relies on unfettered and often hurtful criticism. Kindly Inquisitors is a refreshing and vibrant essay, casting a provocative light on the raging debates over political correctness and multiculturalism."Fiercely argued. . . . What sets his study apart is his attempt to situate recent developments in a long-range historical perspective and to defend the system of free intellectual inquiry as a socially productive method of channeling prejudice."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times"Like no other, this book restates the core of our freedom and demonstrates how great, and disregarded, the peril to that freedom has become."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune"The philosophical defense of free speech and free thought that seems to have been forgotten. . . . A powerful argument."—Diane Ravitch, Wall Street Journal

For 25 years, I lived in an upside-down world where love was hate, attraction was envy, and childhood never ended. A memoir...

Why the crisis of Christianity has become a crisis for democracy What happens to American democracy if Christianity is no longer able, or no longer willing, to perform the functions on which our constitutional order depends? In this provocative book, the award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch—a lifelong atheist—reckons candidly with both the shortcomings of secularism and the corrosion of Christianity. Thin Christianity, as Rauch calls the mainline church, has been unable to inspire and retain believers. Worse, a Church of Fear has distorted white evangelicalism in ways that violate the tenets of both Jesus and James Madison. What to do? For answers, Rauch looks to a new generation of religious thinkers, as well as to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has placed the Constitution at the heart of its spiritual teachings. In this timely critique Rauch addresses secular Americans who think Christianity can be abandoned, and Christian Americans who blame secular culture for their grievances. The two must work together, he argues, to confront our present crisis. He calls on Christians to recommit to the teachings of their faith that align with Madison, not MAGA, and to understand that liberal democracy, far from being oppressive, is uniquely protective of religious freedom. At the same time, he calls on secular liberals to understand that healthy religious institutions are crucial to the survival of the liberal state.

A free eBook that asks hard questions about why politics once worked, and how today’s politics do not.What if idealistic reform itself is a culprit?In Political Realism , Jonathan Rauch argues that well-meaning efforts to stem corruption and increase participation have stripped political leaders and organizations of the tools they need to forge compromises and make them stick. Fortunately, he argues, much of the damage can be undone by rediscovering political realism. Instead of trying todrive private money away out of politics, how about channeling it to strengthen parties and leaders? Instead of doubling down on direct democracy, how about giving political professionals more influence over candidate nominations? Rauch shows how a new generation of realist thinkers is using timetested truths about politics and government to build reforms for our time.Rich with contrarian insights and fresh thinking, Political Realism is an eye-opening challenge to today’s conventional wisdom about what ails American government and politics.

In May 2004, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, but it remains a divisive and contentious issue across America. As liberals and conservatives mobilize around this issue, no one has come forward with a more compelling, comprehensive, and readable case for gay marriage than Jonathan Rauch. In this book, he puts forward a clear and honest manifesto explaining why gay marriage is important—even crucial—to the health of marriage in America today, grounding his argument in commonsense, mainstream values and confronting social conservatives on their own turf. Marriage, he observes, is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them but also is corrosive of the institution itself.Gay marriage, he shows, is a "win-win-win" for strengthening the bonds that tie us together and for remaining true to our national heritage of fairness and humaneness toward all.

An earlier edition of this extraordinarily prescient, elegantly written book created a sensation among Washington media insiders when it was published more than five years ago under the title Demosclerosis . In it, Jonathan Rauch, a former correspondent for The Economist and a columnist for National Journal , showed with startling clarity the reasons why America's political system (and, in fact, other political systems as well) was becoming increasingly ineffective. Today, as Rauch's predictions continue to manifest themselves in a national politics of "sound and fury" and little effective legislation, and in increasing voter cynicism, this book has achieved renown as the classic and essential work on why politics and government don't work. In Government's End , Rauch has completely rewritten and updated his earlier work to reassess his theory, analyze the political stalemate of the last few years, and explain why sweeping reform efforts of the kind led by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Newt Gingrich aren't the answers. He also looks ahead at what is likely to happen -- or not happen -- next, and proposes ideas for what we must do to fix the system. For anyone who cares about the health of American democracy -- and indeed of international security -- Government's End is a fascinating, disturbing, and vitally important book.

In this rigorous and searching,but also deeply personal,journey through Japan's islands and institutions,Rauch burrows deep under the surface to learn how different,and how dangerous,Japan really is. He finds that today's Japan,for all its surface alienness,is strikingly and often surprisingly familiar. Economicaly,it's similar to America in the days of the great cartels and company towns,with a high-tech update. Politically,it's Mayor Daley's Chicago raised to a national scale. And its values,far from being alien to the West,are Plato's own.

It is no secret that Americans are dissatisfied with government. But while the frustration and anger are real, the way we tend to view the problem is all wrong. Rauch reveals the real problems with government, and offers a bracing tonic for unclogging the public arteries.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Fakten oder Fake-News, Wahrheit oder Woher wissen wir, was wir wissen? Die Antworten darauf sind enorm wichtig fur eine funktionierende Gesellschaft, eine lebendige Demokratie. Auf der "rechten" Seite verbreiten Trolle reaktionare Propaganda im Netz. Und "links" sorgt die Cancel-Culture dafur, dass an Universitaten der offene Diskurs uber sensible Themen wie "Gender" oder "Race" verstummt. Fur Propagandaexperten ist klar, dass beide als Techniken eines Informationskrieges bezeichnet werden konnen. Sie manipulieren das gesellschaftliche und mediale Umfeld, um politischen Nutzen daraus zu ziehen. Jonathan Rauch erklart und verteidigt die Verfassung der Erkenntnis Regeln, die die liberale Wissenschaft definieren und die realitatsbasierte Gemeinschaft organisieren. Sie stehen unter dem Dauerbeschuss von Widersachern, die nicht mude werden, immer wieder neue Angriffsstrategien auszuprobieren. Ein Buch, das erlautert, was zu tun ist, um die Wahrheit zu verteidigen - ganz besonders in Zeiten wie diesen.