From the United Nations Security Council, through community organizing that changed the paradigm of municipal redevelopment, to the revolutionary post–Watergate Congress and his role spearheading new environmental, anti-cancer, and global vaccine health initiatives, Andy Maguire was on the front lines in seminal moments of recent American history.
Ahead of the Curve is the riveting story of how Andy learned to accumulate power and leverage it for the public good. Andy’s terms in Congress coincided with the tumultuous times of the Israeli Six-Day War and the reform era of New York Mayor John Lindsay. After a successful unorthodox campaign in a staunch Republican district, he helped revive a hidebound House of Representatives and led an important new environmental movement there. Pacesetting international development work came next.
Andy learned early on that no single person can create real change, discovering how to take risks, use power, build teams, spot compromises, and mobilize diverse interests to get constructive change done. His story is more than an inspiring memoir, and more than a portrait of a committed changemaker pursuing the common good. It also is a coming-of-age tale and an implementation handbook that shows others how to continue Andy’s work.
This vivid insider’s view of fifty years of world history by Michael Takiff, bestselling author of A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Knew Him, is both a compelling read and a beacon of hope for the current era.
Ahead of the Curve is an exceptionally valuable and important book for those who seek to confront today’s challenges to American democracy and a stable world order.
Michael Takiff is the author of A Complicated Man: The Life of Bill Clinton as Told by Those Who Know Him (Yale University Press), awarded First Prize, Biography/Autobiography, at the Los Angeles Book Festival. His previous book, Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: American Fathers and Sons in World War II and Vietnam (William Morrow), was named a Washington Post “Critics’ Pick.” His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Salon, The Nation, CNN.com, and HuffingtonPost. Michael H. (Mike) Levin holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Oxford, and Harvard Law. He served with the National Labor Relations Board, as top appellate counsel for the Department of Labor’s Solicitor’s Office for Occupational Safety and Health, and as deputy director of a cabinet-level Carter administration task force convened to reform OSHA. Working with Andy Maguire, Mike designed multiple policy initiatives that meshed with Andy’s interests, including a bill to reform the Guaranteed Student Loan Program, legislation that for the first time advocated income-based loan repayment. He continued as fellow with, then consultant to, the Senate Judiciary Committee, then chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy, where his colleagues included Stephen Breyer (later justice of the Supreme Court) and Kenneth Feinberg (later head of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund).
