United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • United States Senator Cory Booker, hailed as “one of the key figures for justice and forthrightness in America today” (HuffPost), makes an impassioned case that the virtues of empathy, responsibility, and action must guide our nation toward a brighter future.

Raised in northern New Jersey, Cory Booker went to Stanford University on a football scholarship, accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, then studied at Yale Law School. Upon graduation, his options were limitless.

He chose public service. And in 2013, after more than seven years as mayor of Newark, he became the first Black man elected to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate.

In United, Booker draws on personal experience to issue a stirring call to reorient our nation and our politics around the principles of compassion and solidarity. He speaks of rising above despair to engage with hope, pursuing our shared mission, and embracing our common destiny. Here is his account of his own political education, the moments—some entertaining, some heartbreaking, all of them enlightening—that have shaped his civic vision. Booker shares the lessons he learned from the remarkable men and women who inspired him to serve and whose example fueled his desire to create opportunities for others. Here also are his observations on the issues he cares about most deeply, from race and the crisis of mass incarceration to economic and environmental justice.

In a world where we too easily lose touch with our neighbors, he argues, we must remember that we all rise or fall together—and that we must move beyond mere tolerance for one another toward a deeper connection: love.

Cory Booker is the junior United States senator from New Jersey. He was born in Washington, D.C., and his parents, who both worked for IBM, later relocated the family to Harrington Park, New Jersey. A star high school athlete, Booker received a football scholarship to Stanford University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He then attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar before earning his law degree from Yale University. Booker won a special election to fill the term of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg to become New Jersey’s first African American senator and only the twenty-first person in American history to ascend directly from mayor to senator. Booker lives in Newark’s Central Ward.