ACS New York: Barbara McQuade presents “Attack from Within” with Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Join us for the launch of legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade's new book Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. McQuade will appear in conversation with American historian and cultural critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of the book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.

This event is co-sponsored by The American Constitution Society, Just Security, and The Institute for Public Knowledge. Books will be sold at the event by McNally Jackson.

Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where she teaches criminal law and national security law. She is also a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. From 2010 to 2017, McQuade served as the U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She was appointed by President Barack Obama, and was the first woman to serve in her position. McQuade also served as vice chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and co-chaired its Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee.

Before her appointment as U.S. Attorney, McQuade served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Detroit for 12 years, including service as Deputy Chief of the National Security Unit. In that role, she prosecuted cases involving terrorism financing, foreign agents, threats, and export violations. McQuade serves on a number of non-profit boards, and served on the Biden-Harris Transition Team in 2020-2021. She has been recognized by The Detroit News with the Michiganian of the Year Award, the Detroit Free Press with the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, Crain's Detroit Business as a Newsmaker of the Year and one of Detroit's Most Influential Women, and the Detroit Branch NAACP and Arab American Civil Rights League with their Tribute to Justice Award. McQuade is a graduate of the University of Michigan and its law school. She and her husband live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and have four children. She is the Co-Faculty Advisor for the ACS University of Michigan Student Chapter.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University. She writes about fascism, authoritarianism, and propaganda— and the threats these present to democracies around the world. She is also the author of Lucid, a Substack newsletter about democracy and autocracy. Her most recent book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, looks at how illiberal leaders use propaganda, corruption, violence, and machismo – and how they can be defeated. It was the first book to examine Trump in the perspective of 100 years of authoritarian history, and the first book to include masculinity as a tool of autocratic rule. In it, she predicted that if he lost the 2020 presidential election, he would not leave office quietly.

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