On our bookshelf tonight, a call to action for everyday Americans to reclaim their

political destinies from the heroes of our past and present.

Princeton University Professor Eddie Gla Jr. argues that is what's needed to secure a just

and democratic future for America. It's a case he makes in his new book, We Are the Heroes

we've been looking for. And he joins us now. Eddie, welcome back to the news hour.

Always good to see you.

Oh, it's always good to see you. It's a delight.

So this is, it's a beautiful book, let me say. It tackles some very big ideas but in reading it it's also fair to say

I think there's an urgency to your writing in this book tell me about that what's

driving that? Well I think you, we've outsourced our responsibility for

democracy too long for too long. We've outsourced it to politicians. We've

outsourced it to so-called community leaders to so-called profits and

heroes when in fact we need to take responsibility for it.

And if we don't take responsibility for democracy in this moment and we heard a lot of that in the last segment,

if we don't do it in this moment we may very well lose it.

So I'm saying that instead of thinking, we may very well lose it.

So I'm saying that instead of thinking, you know, looking to an election,

looking to politicians, we need to look to ourselves.

And in order to do that, we're going to have to really examine who we take ourselves to be.

We are the leaders we've been looking for you right in the book.

We are the profits we've been looking for.

This isn't an absolute call to action.

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