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.
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
“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
