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Also by Rachel Maddow:

Drift, April 2012
Hardcover / e-Book

DRIFT
By: Rachel Maddow

The Unmooring of American Military Power

Crown
April 2012
On Sale: March 27, 2012
288 pages
ISBN: 0307460983
EAN: 9780307460981
Kindle: B005BUG6T8
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List

Non-Fiction

"One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Found­ers could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rust­ing nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine.

Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan's radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse.

Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seri­ously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a "loud and jangly" political debate about how, when, and where to apply America's strength and power--and who gets to make those decisions.

Media Buzz

Daily Show with Jon Stewart - March 19, 2013
Tonight Show with Jay Leno - March 11, 2013
Today - March 5, 2013
Daily Show with Jon Stewart - February 28, 2013
Late Show with David Letterman - October 23, 2012
Morning Edition - May 7, 2012
Tonight Show with Jay Leno - April 10, 2012
Today - March 27, 2012
Fresh Air - NPR - March 27, 2012
Late Show with David Letterman - March 26, 2012
Meet the Press - March 25, 2012