The Firsts: The Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress

A riveting inside look at the women behind the headlines.

In the November 2018 midterms, the greatest number of women in history were elected to Congress. It was a group diverse in background, age, professional experience, and ideology. And from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and "the Squad" to a group with national security backgrounds calling themselves "the Badasses," from the first two Native American women to the first two Muslim women, all were swept into office on an enormous wave of grassroots support.

Here, New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer chronicles these women's first year in Congress, following their shift from trailblazing campaigns to the daily work of governance. In committee rooms, offices, visits back home with their constituents, and conversations in the halls of the Capitol, she probes the question: Will Washington, with its hidebound traditions and overpriced housing and petty power struggles, change the changemakers? Or will this Congress, which looks a little more like today's America, truly be the start of something new?

Vivid and smart, The Firsts delivers fresh details, inside access, historical perspective, and expert analysis as these women--inspiring, controversial, talented, and rebellious--do something surprising: make Congress essential again.

Author: Jennifer Steinhauer
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 03/10/2020
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781616209995


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2020
Library Journal 03/01/2020 pg. 104
Booklist 03/01/2020 pg. 4

About the Author
Steinhauer, Jennifer: - Jennifer Steinhauer has covered numerous high-profile beats in her twenty-five-year reporting career at the New York Times, from City Hall bureau chief and Los Angeles bureau chief to Capitol Hill. She won the Newswoman's Club of New York Front Page Deadline Reporting Award in 2006 for her reporting on Hurricane Katrina. She has written a novel about the television business, and two cookbooks.