E. J. Dionne, Jr. is a senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution, a political correspondent for the Washington Post, and a professor at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous books, including Why Americans Hate Politics, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right. In Our Divided Political Heart, Dionne analyzes past and current U.S. politics in presenting his plan to rediscover the idea of progress and to put an end to fears of American decline.