Poles Apart
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  • Published: 9 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473593695
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00

Poles Apart

Why People Turn Against Each Other, and How to Bring Them Together

Formats & editions
EBook
3 Sep 2021
Audiobook
9 Sep 2021
Paperback
2 Jul 2022
Hardback
19 Oct 2021
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A roadmap to understanding why our present has become so polarised and how we can become open to changing our own minds and those of others.

Humans may violently disagree with one another, but there are ways to bring them together.

Poles Apart is based on interviews with leaders on both sides of the Atlantic and the latest academic research. It explains why we are so tribal, the advantages and disadvantages of being so, its often-unknown effects on our politics, businesses and social groups, and what we can do to halt excessive polarisation. It’s a brilliantly insightful – and very practical – book on a timeless subject that also happens to be very topical. It acts as the ideal primer for those who have ever had to negotiate or resolve a conflict – in other words, all of us.

Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy, the first of the book’s trio of authors, hit on the idea while a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University. In a panel discussion with Trump supporters on the largely Democrat leaning campus a student asked: "when did you last change your mind and why?" The panel took a deep breath as they reached for an answer. But their candid responses unlocked a new willingness to engage with an opposite viewpoint.

This became the question behind the Changed my Mind podcast, with Ali’s former colleagues Laura Osborne and Alexandra (Alex) Chesterfield coming onboard. Dubbed by Rory Sutherland, founder of Ogilvy’s Behavioural Science Practice, ‘the best question he has ever heard’, it has been gaining plaudits and listeners from its inception. Guests to date have included Peter Gabriel, Professor Tali Shalot and Jonathan Haidt. Distributed with openDemocracy, a second series is set to appear this summer.

As our identities increasingly align under political labels of convenience, now this is the perfect time for a reflective book that shines light on the world around us and how we can correct course from excessive political polarisation.
  • Published: 9 September 2021
  • ISBN: 9781473593695
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $30.00
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About the authors

Ali Goldsworthy

Ali Goldsworthy has spent over 20 years active in politics and campaigning. A former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats, she led the team that built the fastest growing campaigning organisation in the UK. In 2017 she was a Sloan Fellow at Stanford, creating its first depolarisation course and claiming numerous awards for her work. Ali has written for the Telegraph, Independent, New Statesman and Financial Times.

Laura Osborne

Laura Osborne is a professional communicator and change maker, with a background in public affairs and government communications. Currently Communications Director and a spokesperson at London First, the voice of London’s largest businesses, she was the UK Consumer Association’s first Head of Corporate Affairs, working with some of the UK’s biggest corporates to directly intervene to improve the banking, energy and telecoms markets for consumers.

Alex Chesterfield

Alex Chesterfield is a behavioural scientist with a Masters in Cognitive & Decision Science. She currently works in financial services, leading a team of psychologists to encourage consumers to make better decisions and drive ethical business cultures. For four years, she was an elected Councillor in Guildford for the Conservative Party and has personally experienced the effects of affective polarisation, both in and out of the workplace.

Praise for Poles Apart

A fascinating and thought-provoking analysis of the divisions between us, how we bridge them, how we reshape the world - and ourselves too. Essential reading.

Cathy Newman, Channel 4 News

Asks the best question I have ever heard. And, critically, offers solutions. A must read.

Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK, and author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense

Poles Apart is an extraordinary achievement: fresh, deeply authoritative, and entertaining on every page. Everyone talks about polarisation, but no one does it like Goldsworthy, Osborne, and Chesterfield. You'll finish this book wiser, kinder, and more hopeful than when you started it.

Jamie Susskind, author of Future Politics

In Poles Apart, the authors give us a comprehensive review of the psychology of groupishness and polarisation. It's a fascinating read, which will help anyone who wants to step out of the polarisation cycle and become part of the solution, rather than part of the problem that is now damaging the world's leading democracies.

Jonathan Haidt, NYU-Stern School of Business, author of The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis

All my life I have been an impassioned advocate of technology. I believed it could connect the whole world, which it has largely done. What I and many others failed to see, was how those connections would then be used to divide and polarise us - for commercial and political gain. This is endangering our social institutions and democracy on which our dreams were based. It turns our own lives and sometimes, families, to the poles - into warzones. This is a pivotal moment for this book to be written, read and understood.

Peter Gabriel, musician

A trenchant diagnosis of the causes and consequences of the polarisation plaguing our societies - and a practical road map for remedies. Highly recommended.

David Broockman, Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley

It's a great book and the spirit of it is so much nicer than all those you are totally wrong books.

Matt Chorley, The Times