Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics (The Public Square)

225 Pages·2021·2.039 MB·English

by  Anne-Marie Slaughter

RENEWAL
the public square book series
prince ton university press
Ruth O’Brien, Series Editor
R E N E W A L
FROM CRISIS TO TRANSFORMATION
IN OUR LIVES, WORK, AND POLITICS
ANNE-M ARIE SLAUGHTER
prince ton university press
princet on & oxford
Copyright © 2021 by Anne- Marie Slaughter
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“Let Amer i ca Be Amer i ca Again,” “Theme for En glish B,” and “Dreams” from
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold
Rampersad with David Roessel, Associate Editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate
of Langston Hughes. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates. Copyright
1994 by the Langston Hughes Estate.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Slaughter, Anne-Marie, 1958– author.
Title: Renewal : from crisis to transformation in our lives, work, and
politics / Anne-Marie Slaughter.
Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2021. | Series:
The public square | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021012190 (print) | LCCN 2021012191 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780691210568 (hardback) | ISBN 9780691213460 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Social change—United States. | Social values—United States. |
Change (Psychology) | Resilience (Personality trait) | Organizational change. |
BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Leadership | POLITICAL
SCIENCE / Women in Politics
Classification: LCC HN59.2 .S5823 2021 (print) | LCC HN59.2 (ebook) |
DDC 303.40973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012190
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012191
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Eric Crahan, Thalia Leaf
Production Editorial: Terri O’Prey
Text Design: Karl Spurzem
Jacket/Cover Design: Will Brown
Production: Danielle Amatucci
Publicity: Maria Whelan, Kate Farquhar- Thomson
Copyeditor: Madeleine Adams
Jacket art by Dan Cristian
This book has been composed in Arno Pro with DIN Condensed display
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my sons, my nieces and nephews,
and all the young people in my life.
May you live in a world renewed,
and may you help renew it.

Let Amer i ca Be Amer i ca Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(Amer i ca never was Amer i ca to me.)
Let Amer i ca be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was Amer i ca to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
( There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
. . .
O, let Amer i ca be Amer i ca again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be— the land where every man is f ree.
The land that’s mine—t he poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made Amer i ca,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
Amer i ca!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
Amer i ca never was Amer i ca to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
Amer i ca will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make Amer i ca again!
langston hughes (1936)
CONTENTS
Preface: Let Amer i ca Be the Dream the Dreamers Dreamed xi
introduction: When Leadership Means Having
to Say You’re Sorry 1
chapter 1: Run toward the Criticism 19
chapter 2: Connect to Change 36
chapter 3: Rethink Risk 50
chapter 4: Lead from the Center and the Edge 65
chapter 5: Share Power 80
chapter 6: Looking Backward and Forward 92
chapter 7: Rugged Interdependence 98
chapter 8: Building Big 117
chapter 9: Giving and Finding Grace 133
chapter 10: Plures et Unum 142
ix