A New Yorker staff writer since 1995, Mayer is an accomplished investigative journalist; her second book, Strange Justice, co-authored with Jill Abramson, was a National Book Award finalist, and her recent exposé of the Bush administration’s enhanced interrogation techniques, The Dark Side, won numerous awards, including the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Goldsmith Book Prize, the Edward Weintal Prize, and the Ridenhour Prize. In her fourth book Mayer draws on court records, extensive interviews, and many private archives to examine the growing political influence of extreme libertarians among the one percent, such as the Koch brothers, tracing their ideas about taxation and government regulation and their savvy use of lobbyists to further an agenda that advances their own interests at the expense of meaningful economic, environmental, and labor reform.
Mayer will be in conversation with James Bennet, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.