Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics

by Anne-Marie Slaughter

Overview

From the acclaimed author of Unfinished Business, a story of crisis and change that can help us find renewed honesty and purpose in our personal and political lives

Like much of the world, America is deeply divided over identity, equality, and history. Renewal is Anne-Marie Slaughter’s candid and deeply personal account of how her own odyssey opened the door to an important new understanding of how we as individuals, organizations, and nations can move backward and forward at the same time, facing the past and embracing a new future.

Weaving together personal stories and reflections with insights from the latest research in the social sciences, Slaughter recounts a difficult time of self‐examination and growth in the wake of a crisis that changed the way she lives, leads, and learns. She connects her experience to our national crisis of identity and values as the country looks into a four-hundred-year-old mirror and tries to confront and accept its full reflection. The promise of the Declaration of Independence has been hollow for so many for so long. That reckoning is the necessary first step toward renewal. The lessons here are not just for America. Slaughter shows how renewal is possible for anyone who is willing to see themselves with new eyes and embrace radical honesty, risk, resilience, interdependence, grace, and vision.

Part personal journey, part manifesto, Renewal offers hope tempered by honesty and is essential reading for citizens, leaders, and the change makers of tomorrow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691210568
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	09/21/2021
Series:	The Public Square , #6
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,051,954
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Anne-Marie Slaughter is CEO of New America and the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Her books include Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family and The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Twitter @SlaughterAM

Table of Contents

Preface: Let America Be the Dream the Dreamers Dreamed xi

Introduction: When Leadership Means Having to Say You're Sorry 1

Chapter 1 Run toward the Criticism 19

Chapter 2 Connect to Change 36

Chapter 3 Rethink Risk 50

Chapter 4 Lead from the Center and the Edge 65

Chapter 5 Share Power 80

Chapter 6 Looking Backward and Forward 92

Chapter 7 Rugged Interdependence 98

Chapter 8 Building Big 117

Chapter 9 Giving and Finding Grace 133

Chapter 10 Plures et Unum 142

Coda: The America That Has Never Been Yet, Yet Must Be 157

Acknowledgments 165

Notes 169

Index 189

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Impressive. Slaughter shares powerful personal reflections while providing a compelling vision and road map for our country’s renewal. A real gift.”—Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach For All and founder of Teach For America

“At a time of painful societal division, Renewal offers a way forward that combines necessary historical reckoning with hope, pride, and an inspiring vision for a fairer and more productive America. It’s also a powerful story of leadership and transformation, with lessons for making significant positive impact on the world.”—Reid Hoffman, cofounder of Linkedin and coauthor of Blitzscaling

“Slaughter offers a brilliant vision of a twenty-first-century American patriotism grounded in an allegiance to our founding principles of equality and liberty while celebrating the place in our national culture for a plurality of voices.”—US Congressman Ro Khanna

“Renewal delivers a luminous call to action, aspiration, and accountability. Anne-Marie Slaughter argues, as only she can, that to build a better America, we must examine ourselves—and her personal, introspective storytelling offers hope for a path forward.”—Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation

“Anne-Marie Slaughter knows there is no easy answer to the question of where we go from here. Instead, by interrogating her own failures and rejections, alongside the difference between intention and action, Slaughter offers a timely meditation on the power of embracing critique as a catalyst for personal and societal change.”—Alicia Menendez, MSNBC anchor and author of The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed As You Are

“Slaughter is absolutely unmatched when it comes to articulating a new vision for America. At once honest and hopeful—and grounded in a people-centered approach—this book shows how we can renew the American dream, and ensure we all share in it.”—Mariana Mazzucato, author of Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism

Editorial Reviews

"An absolutely terrific new book."—-Fareed Zakaria, CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS

"[Slaughter] admirably. . . examine[s] her leadership flaws, biased assumptions and social privilege, inviting the reader into her painful process of discovery and renewal. . . . She is particularly effective in describing her evolution as an outspoken feminist who is forced to face up to the ways in which her advocacy for her own tribe—White, educated women—left her blind to the struggles of many other, less-advantaged women."—-Jane Eisner, Washington Post

"An illuminating synthesis of reflection, reckoning, and aspiration about what America has been and what it can be, a book that I hope thoughtful people of all political stripes will read and engage with."—-Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn

"There is a salve for the emotional exhaustion and polarity of the past five years, and it is Anne-Marie Slaughter's new book Renewal. . . . With vulnerability, honesty, and humility, Anne-Marie has written a tour de force of all that makes us human. Beginning with a personal story of crisis and apology, she traces the ripples to show how meaningful change can begin with individual transformation and extend outward to social change."—-Dov Seidman, author of How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything

"Provides advice that can be applied to anyone’s career."—-Jane Thier, Fortune Magazine

"Energetic, erudite, and readable."—-Andrew Keen, Keen On podcast

"This book is a reminder that you can embrace being you."—-Elmira Bayrasli, Foreign Policy's Interrupted

From the Publisher