My second book, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, was published in May and is the product of seven years' labor (join the Facebook group!). My first, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. I'm a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Campaign for America's Future, for whom I write a blog, and write for publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Nation. I live with my wife Kathy, a Ph.D. student in public policy, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, and I still play jazz piano.

You can read all about what I do and why in this profile in the Chicago Reader.

And in other news, I coined a term which just made it into the Urban Dictionary.

(As we used to say when I lived in Brooklyn, that and a nickel will get you on the subway...)

Here's me and Pat Buchanan kickin' it old skool...