Stu Levitan welcomes Sarah Chayes, her latest book is On Corruption in America and What is At Stake, from the good people at Penguin Random House.

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. One of the ways that evil manifests itself is through corruption – individuals, or more likely networks, abusing public office for private gain. How to identify and fight that corruption is the business that occupies Sarah Chayes in her new book, as it has occupied much of her professional life, especially as special assistant on corruption to then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, and as advisor to military leaders David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal.

After the Pentagon, she spent five years as a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her previous books include Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security, for which she won the 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban. A former award-winning reporter for National Public Radio based in Paris, France she now lives in Paw Paw, West Virginia.

Sarah comes by her interest in public service and integrity organically, as the daughter of the late law professor Abram Chayes, a State Department official under President Kennedy,  and Prof. Antonia Handler Chayes, attorney and undersecretary of the Air Force under President Carter.

It is a pleasure to welcome to Madison Bookbeat, Sarah Chayes