There are a lot of great books about presidential campaigns.

Teddy White's famous four book series from 1960 to 1972,

and Richard Ben Kramer's singular account of the 1988 campaign

are still touchstones for many political reporters today.

The Bill Clinton and George W. Bush errors produced fewer big hits,

but the genre roared back in the Obama and Trump years.

There are too many great ones about 2016 and 2020 to even mention.

But since 2012, the one post-election book that I look forward to reading every cycle

is not by my colleagues in the political press corps, sorry.

It's by two academics in political science departments.

Lynn Vavric of UCLA and John Sides of Vanderbilt University

are about to publish their latest book in their presidential campaign series.

The bitter end, a political science interpretation of the 2020 presidential campaign,

which is out on September 20th.

They are joined this time by a third co-author, Chris Tessanovic.

This is the book you want to read if you want to understand what they describe

as both the long-term trends and the short-term shocks that shaped 2020

and continue to reverberate today.

I'm Ryan Liza, this is Playbook Deep Dive.

Everyone thinks it's polarization.

It is not polarization.

I think of it as sort of polarization plus.

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