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"With a measured pace and a thoughtful tone, narrator Leon Nixon conveys each senator's background and legislative accomplishments. After each chapter, the gravelly voiced Brown narrates his "thoughts from Desk 88," which reveal his indignation at the obstacles many Americans face in combating hunger and securing affordable health care and a living wage. These two narrative styles blend well, focusing listeners' attention on the abundant research and these senator's passionate commitment to progressive ideals.
— AudioFile Magazine
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"Perhaps the most imaginative book to emerge from the Senate since Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts produced Profiles in Courage.
— David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe
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Brown’s elegant portraits of his desk 88 predecessors have marvelous historical value . . . What makes Desk 88 particularly engaging are anecdotes illuminating the heroes’ convictions and character . . . The book’s last chapter, detailing Brown’s view of what Democrats should stand for in the age of Trump, reads like a thoughtful first draft of the party platform.
— Douglas Brinkley, The Washington Post
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[A] delightful book . . . most revealing is Brown’s analysis of his 2018 reelection by seven points in a state Trump carried by eight . . . his ideology . . does not block his capacity for empathy.
— E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post
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Highly readable and engaging. [Brown's] profiles of the eight Democratic senators are enlightening, even for the most famous . . . the unique value of [Brown's] book is in his quintessential defense of liberal ideals.
— Darrel Rowland, The Columbus Dispatch
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A timely history of 20th-century American progressivism . . . [Brown] offers a stout defense of such progressive policies as Social Security and Medicare. This thoughtful, entertaining book will appeal to liberals and students of congressional history.
— Publishers Weekly
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Senator Sherrod Brown is a fearless force for progressive change whose strong voice and powerful vision have helped lift up hardworking families across America over decades. As American families confront the growing income disparity that is at the root of the crisis of confidence felt by so many, Senator Brown’s Desk 88 delivers a timely call to action and reminds us all of our shared responsibility to expand opportunity, strengthen our democracy, and advance a brighter and more just and equal future for all.
— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
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Sherrod Brown has always been a fighter for people and progress, and here he offers readers a window into the past that ties our shared history to the hard, important work that needs to be done to move our country forward.
— Hillary Clinton
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In Desk 88, Sherrod Brown, a formidable writer as well as a formidable fighter for a more just America, presents the stories of eight progressive senators in riveting, entertaining, and deeply moving detail. This book is political history at its best—we come to understand his subjects’ triumphs, failures, ambiguities, and inner lives with an intimacy that perhaps only a fellow senator can provide.
— Martin Sheen
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Sherrod Brown’s day job as a U.S. Senator provides incentives and occasions for thinking about eight men who shared many of his progressive views and the desk at which he now advocates them. Such is his infectious enthusiasm for his predecessors, you do not need to share his politics in order to enjoy his story of the continuity he feels with the men who sat where he sits.
— George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of A Nice Little Place on the North Side
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Sherrod Brown’s insightful and delightfully written account of eight progressive senators over the past century provides a brilliant history of the progressive movement in the United States, relating the contributions of each of these senators to the fight against America’s most pressing problems. It is an inspiring and useful read for anyone who wants to understand the state of America’s politics today.
— Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize–winning economist
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This is an innovative work of institutional history unlike anything I’ve read before. In Desk 88, Senator Brown offers gripping biographies of the past occupants of his Senate seat, interspersed with his own thoughts about the present and future of progressivism. A terrific read.
— Kevin M. Kruse, professor of history at Princeton University