Stronger Together (book)
| Company type | Book |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | September 6, 2016 |
| Founder | Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine |
| Products | Political campaign book |
| Parent | Simon & Schuster |
Stronger Together: A Blueprint for America's Future is a nonfiction work authored by politicians Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, released in paperback by Simon & Schuster in 2016. The book laid out their political platform during the 2016 election, where they campaigned as the presidential and vice-presidential candidates representing a progressive agenda.
Content
The publication features concise policy summaries, campaign imagery, graphical data, and selected excerpts from Clinton’s speeches. Its layout and presentation bear resemblance to a PowerPoint slide deck.
Organized into three main parts, the book covers:
- Growing Together – proposals on economic growth
- Safer Together – initiatives on national security
- Standing Together – plans for domestic policy
Both authors contribute introductory sections discussing how their backgrounds influenced their perspectives, as well as concluding remarks sharing personal insights on their envisioned contributions if elected.
Publication
Identified as a "campaign book," Stronger Together was announced on August 4, 2016, and published by Simon & Schuster, the same publisher behind all five of Clinton’s previous titles. The book sought to emphasize the substantive nature of the Clinton-Kaine platform in contrast to what was perceived as Donald Trump’s "policy-light" 2016 campaign approach.
Its release was notably late in the election timeline, coming out on September 6, 2016. Clinton referred to it as "our blueprint for America's future," consolidating her campaign strategies into one comprehensive volume. Kaine highlighted its optimistic tone when compared with Trump’s 2015 book Crippled America. The campaign selected "Stronger Together" from a pool of 85 slogan candidates; the phrase was prominently displayed on campaign planes, buses, and during policy addresses.
Critical reaction
User reviews on Amazon.com rapidly became contentious, with supporters and detractors clashing; Amazon removed numerous negative comments identified as originating from Internet trolls.
Overall critical reception was predominantly unfavorable. Carlos Lozada, nonfiction critic at The Washington Post, characterized it as "a self-admitted compilation of campaign fact sheets, speeches, and opinion pieces," describing it as "sloppy, repetitive, dutiful, and dull." He extended his critique to the entire "campaign book" category in his analysis.
Alex Shephard of The New Republic labeled it "a very poor book" lacking justification for its existence, pointing out that its material was freely accessible online. Anna Silman from New York remarked on its "Serif-heavy typography, kitschy visuals, and [...] lack of sophistication." The Christian Science Monitor summed up the prevailing opinion with the headline: "Are all campaign books terrible? Clinton’s certainly follows that pattern."
Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times offered a more tempered perspective, suggesting the book aimed less at entertainment and more at illustrating Donald Trump’s deficiency of comparable content for such a publication.
CNN senior producer Edward Mejia Davis drew parallels with Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s 1992 campaign book, Putting People First: How We Can All Change America, interpreting the comparison as indicative of a leftward evolution within the Democratic Party over two decades.
Sales
Although both Clinton and Kaine actively promoted the book during their campaign events, its initial sales were relatively low, with under 3,000 copies purchased in the first week. The New York Times labeled this performance as a significant disappointment within the publishing sector.
All revenue generated from the book was allocated to charitable causes.
See also
- Crippled America, Donald Trump's 2015 campaign publication
- Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders' memoir released in November 2016