Today is the release date for my new book, A Tragic Legacy. Amazon has begun shipping the book to those who ordered it, and the book should be arriving in bookstores this week.

A new excerpt from the book's Iran chapter -- regarding the various factions which have worked together to push the President towards Middle East militarism generally, and a confrontation with Iran specifically -- is available today here. Previous excerpts from the book were published by Salon (here), and yesterday by Huffington Post (here).

I really appreciate the efforts by bloggers to begin discussing, reviewing and promoting the book in an effort to order to increase its visibility. Matt Stoller yesterday wrote a thoughtful partial review of the book here. Last night, Jane Hamsher wrote about how supporting books can help bring new and fresh perspectives into our public discourse, and Atrios posted similar thoughts.

As the fawning Chris Matthews remarks about Ann Coulter yesterday demonstrate, a book's success can, by itself, guarantee access to our media organs in order to make arguments and offer perspectives which are otherwise excluded. Ultimately, all other considerations are washed aside by product success, the overarching language they truly understand.

I wrote the book for the same reason I blog: because I believe that arguments can be advanced, evidence marshalled and facts revealed which can serve as an antidote to our deeply dysfunctional political discourse and, through reasoned-based (though impassioned) persuasion, constructively influence our political process. A book's success can force media outlets to provide a platform for the book's arguments and to expand the range of voices and perspectives which are heard.