I obsess over politics. This isn’t a humblebrag; I’m an election junkie. My Dad and I bond over discussions about elections and law more than anything else. My eyes grow large at the sight of new data on RealClearPolitics.com, though I understand that it’s educated guessing at best. I have to put a Post-It note on my wallet a week before local that just says ‘DON’T’ so I don’t get myself thrown out of town.

So perhaps it’s fitting that a book called Democracy Awakening is my favorite recent read. It’s written by Heather Cox Richardson, an accomplished academic and professor at Boston College, as well as writer of an increasingly influential newsletter that I must confess, I’ve still not gotten around to reading regularly. It’s not a raucous appeal to get out the vote, fill the streets and raise hell. Instead, it simply tries to answer the following three questions we might have about our young nation: ‘Where are we now?’ ‘How did we get here?’ ‘What do we do?’ Its prose is plain; it’s tone is matter-of-fact. It winds through the past to the present and the past again, weaving names and dates throughout—and so many endnotes that the superscripted numerals seem to hover amid the text like a flock of hungry jackdaws.

I know that last part may have sent some of you running for the hills as memories of pre-internet research papers flash before your eyes, but hear me out. This book is an easy read. It’s not something that will drag you down with technical jargon or byzantine explanations. It’s a primer for the modern US sociopolitical field, not a comprehensive textbook on it—but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better primer than this. Coming in at a roughly-estimated 70,000 words and 254 pages (not counting acknowledgements, endnotes or other housekeeping sections), Democracy Awakening is the perfect length to casually digest in the weeks leading up to what’s no doubt going to be an interesting election year.