arockinsamsara 's review for:

Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis

4.0

hopeful reflective fast-paced

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This is an inspiring reminder that a country is far more than its elected politicians. Countless individuals offer service at all different levels with all sorts of expertise, making life better for everyone, and they often do it selflessly, or at the least without any expectations of fanfare. There are literally millions of federal workers in the USA, many of whom are actively electing not to take the pay raises they could find in the private sector because they value the role their work plays in the overall health of the country and its populace. These essays are tiny portraits into just a handful of such workers/agencies, and more than just serving as a reminder of the dedication many people bring to making the world a better place but also as an inspiration, because they highlight how individuals can have outsized benefits. 

 

The writing is fun and engaging across the board, which is unsurprising considering these essays are not written by political journalists but by writers and artists. The collection feels humanizing and honest, never aiming to coerce or manipulate the reader but to bare a part of America’s actual heart for all to see. The collection is short, I wouldn’t have minded a few additional essays, to be honest, but I do appreciate that when I finished the book I didn’t have any sense of fatigue or repetition, so maybe it is smarter to leave the reader wanting a little more, in that regard. While the brief, to profile an unsung government worker (or department) is broad there still feels like a continuity across the essays, letting the whole be stronger than the sum of its parts.