But it was also, therefore, much more satisfying. And we’ve been talking about this, but I ended up having to kind of challenge a lot of my own assumptions.
So this was a really challenging experience. And I’m living those events in the United States at the same time that I’m writing about them in other places. I’m talking about the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism, the kind of fall of democracy. Spent time in Hungary, spent time in Hong Kong, spend time in a whole bunch of places talking to people, gathering stories, and living the events. This one, I really lived with this for three years because, as you’ll see, I traveled around the world for this book. The eight-year experience was so fresh in that book when I look back on it, is really the first draft, just like, “Here’s how I processed this.” I haven’t even digested it yet. So, you actually, it could be argued, you did it wrong.īen Rhodes: I made a decision to just, it was just so fresh.
And it was-Ĭhris Riback: You’re the first author in history who has ever done it in a year and met the deadline. I mean, I basically just, I signed a contract and I actually handed in the book one year to the day that I signed the contract. What’s harder, the first book or the second one? I mean, with kids, and you have two, it’s definitely the first one, but your first book-child became a New York Times Bestseller, so you’ve got a high bar here for number two, Ben.īen Rhodes: Yes, this one was harder. I appreciate your time.Ĭhris Riback: So, let’s start with the important stuff. Now, more than four years after leaving that role – but still engaged in business, politics, and international relations – Rhodes has written a book about his personal post-Obama journey that sought to answer a simple question: What happened – to the world, America, and himself as the undertow of history pulled us into the currents of nationalism and authoritarianism – and what we should do about it? It’s titled “ After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made.”Īs Rhodes writes: “To be born American in the late twentieth century was to take the fact of a particular kind of American exceptionalism as granted- a state of nature arrived at after all else had failed… Somehow, after three decades of unchecked American capitalism, military power, and technological innovation, the currents of history had turned against democracy itself.”Ĭhris Riback: Ben, thanks for joining me.
For eight years, Ben Rhodes served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, engaged in issues ranging from reestablishing relations with Cuba to Benghazi to helping negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal.
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