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4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
informative
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
medium-paced
emotional
hopeful
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medium-paced
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fast-paced
Who Is Government by Michael Lewis feels like the perfect counter argument to Abundance, which I read earlier this month. Where Abundance is vague and high-level, Lewis focuses on the specifics of government and makes a strong case for how marginal gains matter, especially in the civil sector. It’s a collection of Washington Post long reads, and while that format doesn’t always sit perfectly in a book, the essays all fit a clear theme. They’re thoughtful, often deeply human, and feel like one of the last proper gasps of serious centrism.
The quality is mixed, but pieces like The Cyber Sleuth by Geraldine Brooks and The Sentinel by Casey Cep really stood out. The consistent thread throughout is how government, at its best, works in small, deliberate steps that are easy to overlook but essential to the way things function.
I don’t think this book will change many minds. Lewis became well-known for making the 2008 crash accessible in The Big Short, although arguably it was the film and Margot Robbie in a bubble bath that did the heavy lifting. He doesn’t quite manage that same sense of narrative momentum here, but I think that says more about the subject than his skill.
Lewis is still one of the best modern journalists around, and this felt much more grounded and useful than the kind of surface-level analysis we got from Abundance.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced