The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies

It could be said that every First Lady runs a court―a hub of political power within the White House, where enterprising aides vie for influence and patronage, a theatre of intrigue and counsel where great heights are uniquely possible, but so too is ruin. And the First Lady’s aides are at the center of it all. Behind the scenes, East Wing staffers have boldly advanced civil rights legislation, defused tension with America’s enemies, brought more women into government, and backed abortion rights. In her new book The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies, Azadeh Moaveni blends original reporting, including extensive interviews with key players from past East Wings, with expert research and analysis to take readers deep inside the fascinating and high stakes world of the First Lady’s office like never before spanning the New Deal era to the turbulent, MAGA-influenced 2020s.

Join New America’s Future Security Program as they welcome Azadeh Moaveni for a discussion of her new book The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America’s First Ladies. Azadeh Moaveni is Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, where she directs the program in Global Journalism, and was a 2018 ASU Future of War Fellow at New America. She has spent over two decades traveling the world, covering women’s movements across three continents and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, and writing extensively about gender and women’s quest for political leadership. She has served as correspondent for TIME magazine and the Los Angeles Times and director of the Gender and Conflict program at the International Crisis Group, where her work examined how women exercise political influence behind the scenes. A Pulitzer finalist, she is the author, in addition to The East Wing, of Lipstick Jihad, Honeymoon in Tehran, and Guest House for Young Widows, which was short-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Rathbones Folio Prize, and long-listed for the Orwell Prize in Political Writing.

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