Max Boot on the Threats to American Democracy

Air Dates: April 3-9, 2023

In the last two years, from the steps of the U.S. Capitol to the streets of Kiev, the fight for democracy has been joined. Max Boot reviews the struggle and the links between events overseas and the health of American democracy at home.  

Named as one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict” by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Boot is a historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst. He is a columnist for The Washington Post, as well as the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has worked as an op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal, as well as editor and writer at the Christian Science Monitor. In 2002, he went on to join the Council on Foreign Relations. Boot is the author of four books, winning the 2003 General Wallace M Greene Jr. Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation as the best nonfiction book pertaining to Marine Corps history for “The Savage Wars Of Peace.” His 2018 biography, “The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam,” was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in biography, and a New York Times bestseller. He is currently working on a biography on Ronald Reagan for Norton/Liveright.  

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Boot discusses how the war on Ukraine will “define the international system for the 21st century” and emphasizes the fact that the health of the American republic is the greatest threat we face today.

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. ET, and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.