Our Nation at Risk edited by Zelizer and Greenberg

With political conventions this summer and roughly three months until a national election, scholars will find it worth taking a look at OUR NATION AT RISK edited by Julian E. Zelizer (Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University) and Karen J. Greenberg (Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law). Their text, encompassing sixteen chapters, explores “Election Integrity as a National Security Issue.” In addition to New York Times Columnist Thomas Edsall and former Senator Russ Feingold, contributors include professors based at Catholic University of America, Cornell, MIT, NYU, Stanford, UCLA, UT Austin, and Vanderbilt. Plus, representatives of organizations like American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Enterprise Institute and American Constitution Society. OUR NATION AT RISK has an academic, legal tone, referring often to pertinent court cases and full of footnotes. For example, the chapter titled “Presidential Power and Federal Elections” notes “the absence of lawful authority alone does not guarantee that a president will not attempt to use his office to interfere with an election” and concludes that “the viability of the legal limits on the president's involvement in elections depends greatly on the willingness of those within his [or her] administration to observe and then force them.” Other selections explore equally timely topics like foreign election interference, disinformation, role of Congress and the Supreme Court, and the right to vote.