A review by phenixsnow
Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World by Justin Lee

5.0

I don't know about changing the world but I wish i'd gotten further in this book sooner, perhaps some of the divisive (coronavirus/race/politics) discussions i've had over the past few weeks would have gone at least marginally better.

I was disappointed at the beginning of the book. I didn't think it was going to be applicable to me at all. It seemed more applicable to moderating panel discussions between groups or for face-to-face planned sitdown discussions to intentionally have a dialogue about a point of disagreement... I was more interested in how i could have unplanned socially distanced discussions about hard topics and still be on speaking terms at the end.

It ended up being very practical and useful. the latter two thirds of the book focus on how to have strategic dialogue with people who don't agree with you. So many of the things he points out are places i can see many of my discussions went off the rails... the point where myself of the other person really dug our heels in or got defensive. I think i need to reread this book a second time.