The Pulitzer Prize–winning opinion columnist at The New York Times and “an absolutely original genius” (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post) Carlos Lozada explores how people in power reveal themselves through their books and writings and, in doing so, illuminate the personal, political, and cultural conflictions driving Washington and the nation.

A longtime book critic and columnist in Washington, Carlos Lozada dissects all manner of texts: commission reports, political reporting, Supreme Court decisions, and congressional inquiries to understand the controversies animating life in the capital. He also reads copious books by politicians and top officials: tell-all accounts by administration insiders, campaign biographies by candidates longing for high office, revisionist memoirs by those leaving those offices behind. With this “unsparing and gentle, erudite and entertaining” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize­–winning author of Ghost Wars) essay collection, Lozada argues that no matter how carefully political figures sanitize their experiences, positions, and records, they almost always let the truth slip through. They show us their faults and blind spots, their ambitions and compromises, and their underlying motives and insecurities. Whether they mean to or not, they tell us who they really are.

Lozada notes that Barack Obama constantly invoked the power of his life story in his memoirs and speeches, a sign of how he tried to transform his personal symbolism from inspiration on the campaign trail into an all-purpose government tool. Donald Trump revealed not just his vanity, but his utter isolation from the world, long before he entered the bubble of the White House. In deft and lacerating prose, Lozada interprets the unresolved tensions of Hillary Clinton’s ideological beliefs. He imagines the wonderful memoir of George H.W. Bush could have given us but instead left scattered throughout various books and letters. He explores why Kamala Harris has struggled to carve out a distinctive role as vice president. He explains how Ron DeSantis’s pitch to America is just a list of enemies. And he even glimpses what Vladimir Putin fears the most, and why he seeks conflict with the west. He does so all through their own books, and their own words.

This “monumental read” (The Guardian) is the perfect guide to the state of our politics, and the men and women who dominate the terrain. It explores the construction of personal identity, the delusions of leadership, and the mix of subservience and ambition that can define a life in politics. The more we read the stories of Washington, the clearer our understanding of the competing visions of our country.

Carlos Lozada is an opinion columnist at The New York Times and cohost of the Matter of Opinion podcast. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and is the author of What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era and The Washington Book.