Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope, by Daniel Ellsberg, has just been released. This posthumous collection from the former government official, whistleblower, and activist draws from half a century of his handwritten notebooks, starting with the year he released the Pentagon Papers. It is co-edited by his son Michael Ellsberg and me.

I happened to work on the project that became Truth and Consequence because I had been Dan’s assistant back in the 1980s. Thirty years later, I returned to help him sort out his papers for his archive at University of Massachusetts Amherst.

While we were going through his 600 boxes of papers, boatloads of handwritten notes revealed themselves. Although his handwriting was widely seen as indecipherable, after over a decade of working with him, I could read much of it. What I came across was fascinating and tantalizing.

For several years, we continued to organize the materials in the boxes. As more and more extraordinary writing came to light, I became confident that what I was seeing was the foundation for a book.

So I set about to review the notes systematically, gathering promising excerpts to share, then transcribing and editing them, then shaping these into a manuscript.

Although it took several years for my vision to become a reality, in the end Truth and Consequence came together better than I could have imagined, shepherded by Bloomsbury Publishing. Dan’s 50 years of handwritten notebook writings form the major portion of the book.

It is deeply satisfying to have freed this material from Dan’s boxes to share with the world. He was a brilliant, witty, innovative thinker and an inspiring exemplar of civil resistance and living his values. His ideas and inspiration are needed, now more than ever.