Structure

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey is split into a preface and ten chapters. Instead of building off of previous chapters - with the exception of Chapter Ten - each chapter focuses on its own problem and is titled to match each one. For example, Chapter Seven: Every Body focuses on health care; Chapter Nine: Smart on Security discusses national security. This adds to the complexity of the entire narrative by showing how overwhelming it can feel to try and tackle every single problem at once. This is something that Kamala recognizes in the Preface when she says, “This book is not meant to be a policy platform, much less a fifty-point plan. Instead, it is a collection of ideas and viewpoints and stories, from my life and from the lives of the many people I’ve met along the way” (XVI).

Each chapter is meant...