Changed My Mind podcasters sign with Random House Business

Random House Business has acquired Poles Apart, "a major new analysis of political and social tribalism" by the presenters of the podcast "Changed My Mind".

Nigel Wilcockson, publishing director of Random House Business, acquired UK, Commonwealth and translation rights from Caroline Michel at PFD and will publish the book in spring 2021.

Written by the founders of The Depolarization Project behind the "Changed My Mind" podcast—three experts from the worlds of politics, business and behavioural science, Alison Goldsworthy, Laura Osborne and Alex Chesterfield—the book is based on interviews with leaders on both sides of the Atlantic as well as academic research. It explains "why we are so tribal, the advantages and disadvantages of being so, its often-unknown effects on our politics, businesses and social groups, and what we can do to halt excessive polarisation".

Poles Apart is scheduled for publication in hardback, e-book and audio in March 2021, with a mass market paperback edition to follow.

The authors said jointly: "this is a book that needed to be written to help us all make sense of the world around us. As we divide into political groups based as much on what they aren’t as what they are, now is the time to dig into what’s happening at a psychological level. Poles Apart will be a book that would be useful to all of us, and challenging to many, in civil society, business or politics. We can’t wait to share it."

Wilcockson said: "Ali, Laura and Alex make a formidable, interdisciplinary and intellectually diverse team. The issues they address could not be more timely. Poles Apart is destined to become a standard work on both what leads to so much human conflict and how it can be resolved."