Vital lessons and wisdom from StoryCorps’ acclaimed nine-year project of bringing people together from across the American political divide to listen to one another

A liberal and a conservative walk into a room. No, it’s not the setup to a joke. It’s the first step in a remarkable nationwide project from StoryCorps called One Small Step. In states across the country, thousands of people with opposing political views—who have been led to believe they should loathe one another—have been guided into dialogues that get them past their talking points and toward real intimacy and understanding.

Now, as he’s done with other intrepid StoryCorps projects, and in books like Callings and Listening Is an Act of Love, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay guides readers on a moving and edifying experiential journey through the arc of the “One Small Step” project. We meet people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs, and we take to heart what they brought to their conversations and what they left with. We come to appreciate the methodology Isay and his team of experts created to make this bridging possible. And we absorb the surprising lessons they learned along the way.

A powerful corrective to prevailing counsels of despair, One Small Step is a beacon of hope in a dark time. If you heed its light and follow it, even haltingly, you’ll arrive at a place of connection where the majority of Americans—who are exhausted by the rancor and division—truly want to live. The thousands of people who have already walked this path of reconciliation and repair thanks to StoryCorps have now, with this book, made it possible for their experiences to blaze the trail for many thousands more. Perhaps even you.