Last Best Hope

Oct 22, 2024 1:45 AM

Author:George Packer

Last Best Hope

Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America's descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming injustices, paralyses, and divides

How, in a few decades, did the United States transform from a broadly prosperous middle-class country, with relatively healthy institutions and competent leaders, to a nation defined by discredited elites, hollowed-out institutions, and blatant inequalities-feared and pitied by our friends, mocked and sabotaged by our adversaries, first in the world in Covid cases and deaths, and led in recent years by an incompetent authoritarian bigot? Last Best Hope is a bracing account of our current crisis and of how a new era of civic revitalization may bring it to an end.

Combining reportage with historical narrative, autobiography, and political analysis, Packer depicts and assesses the four inadequate narratives that dominate American public life: Libertarian America, which imagines a nation of individuals responsible for their own fate, and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Cosmopolitan America, the ideology of Silicon Valley and the professional elite,which celebrates globalization and leaves many American communities behind; Diverse America, which defines citizens as members of large identity groups that have inflicted or suffered oppression; and White America, a shallow nationalism that fears the contamination of non-whites and treachery of coastal elites, and poses the greatest threat to democracy in our lifetime.

At a time when many fear that the American experiment in self-government may collapse, or, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "die by suicide", Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain American democracy. To point a better way forward, he looks back at previous eras of crisis to discover the resources for invigorating self-government. Combining trenchant social analysis with a vibrant and stinging essayistic voice and a deep knowledge of America's past and present, Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national self-examination the times demand.

Reviews

In the great tradition of Richard Hofstadter, but with a reporter's eye, George Packer has given us a thoughtful and ultimately hopeful book about crisis and opportunity.

—— Jon Meacham, author of His Truth Is Marching On and The Soul of America

George Packer has written a small but big book. The end of the pandemic should be pure joy, but the fact that a public health crisis deepened our divisions has weighed down our hearts. Is there anything that could glue us together as one people? Packer answers yes. And the case he makes in doing so provides the vaccine I have most wanted - hope.

—— Atul Gawande, surgeon and author of Being Mortal and The Checklist Manifesto

In Last Best Hope, George Packer retells the story of 2020, offering an original account of the fracturing of [America's] mind and suggesting how we might restore unity. Ranging from Tocqueville to Trump, this extended essay will provoke you to think harder about America's past as well as America's future.

—— Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy and Gulag

In the summer of 2020, America seemed to divide into two different nations. Anyone who observed the crack-up will cherish this flinty analysis, which offers new insights into how Americans from Frances Perkins to Bayard Rustin to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol have understood and defined freedom. The result is a clear-eyed explanation of how a progressive nation can be a unified one.

—— John H. McWhorter, professor of linguistics at Columbia University, contributing editor at The Atlantic, and host of Slate’s Lexicon Valley

[An] incisive, deftly argued book.

—— Peter Conrad , Observer

The story of what we wear is the story of who we are, and Worn offers a riveting, provocative, and eye-opening account. One cannot make sense of our modern world without this book

—— Brian Christian , Author of The Most Human Human

Expansive . . . elegantly chronicling how textile production came to be defined by worker exploitation, misogyny, environmental devastation, and colonialism . . . Yet she also finds space to appreciate sartorial marvels and to celebrate the loom aficionados, "denimheads," and "wool enthusiasts" who aim for a more ethical, analog future

—— New Yorker

Extraordinary . . . fascinating . . . a wonderful way into history, quite often through the voices of people who don't have a say in history

—— Cerys Matthews

A masterpiece of investigative reporting and a riveting adventure story, Worn is both panoramic and richly particular. Thanhauser is the best of guides: humane, engaging, generous with historical anecdote and always able to reveal the telling detail. She shows how the cost of fashion far exceeds any retail price tag, and how the revival of venerable traditions might yet lead us to a sustainable future

—— Geraldine Brooks , author of The Secret Chord

An incredibly well-reported account of how fashion, far from being trivial, has shaped human history

—— Pippa Bailey , New Statesman

This is a must-read book for anyone interested in textiles. In it Sofi Thanhauser tracks the ingenuity, creativity and human cost of textile production across centuries and cultures in a book which combines remarkable research with heartfelt care

—— Clare Hunter , author of Threads of Life

Captivating and deeply researched . . . Thanhauser unearths the secret life of fabrics with skill and precision. Readers won't look at their wardrobes the same way again

—— Publishers Weekly

A fascinating read, laying out how our increasingly careless use and discarding of clothing has come to damage our planet. Thanhauser has carried out a remarkable mass of research on clothes and the fibers they are made from. She has stitched it all together in a clear and engaging style that invites one to keep reading and to start mending our ways

—— Elizabeth Wayland Barber , author of Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years

Original, insightful and thought provoking . . . a delight to read such rich insights into the weaving and knitting together of industries, societies, political initiatives and economies of cloth that truly demonstrates humans activities

—— Dilys Williams , Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion

Sofi Thanhauser's history of cloth is not just about clothing: it is about ethics, workers' rights, women's progress, climate justice. It is the about the fabric of who we are. And as told in Worn, it also makes an absolutely gripping read!

—— Peggy Orenstein , author of Girls & Sex and Boys & Sex

Admirable concision and formidable scholarship . . . Now and then in the life of a book reviewer, a book comes along that makes you glad to be one . . . Worn falls plumb into this category

—— Nicola Schulman , Oldie

Thanhauser's geographical reach is impressive . . . as is the rigour of her examinations of the cultural, economic, political and environmental impacts

—— Lucy Scholes , Telegraph

Previous Article：Worn Next Article：How to be Well Read

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.