TODD S. PURDUM is a veteran journalist and author. In a career spanning more than 40 years, he has written widely about politics and culture, starting at The New York Times, where he spent 23 years covering politics from city hall to the White House, later serving as a diplomatic correspondent and the Los Angeles bureau chief. He has also been a staff writer at Vanity Fair, Politico, and The Atlantic. He is the author of Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution and An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.