In January 2022, I wrote about David Pepper's book "Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines," writing that it stood out in the literature on democratic erosion "as arguably the most important for three reasons: It brings the subject down to earth, connects democratic erosion to corruption and the decline in America's quality of life, and provides a wealth of ideas about how to fight back to protect democracy."
Pepper's new book, "Saving Democracy: A User's Manual for Every American" builds on that foundation, providing not just a user's manual, but a diagnostic framework to help users orient themselves to the task at hand. It's a bottom-up guide for saving democracy from below. Whatever else you may read about saving democracy — history, political science, cognitive science, etc. — this book is essential in terms of translating a necessary diversity of understanding into coherent, unified (not uniform) action.
