Last Best Hope

America in Crisis and Renewal

De: George Packer

Narrado por: George Packer

2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year
2021 New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year
2021 NPR Best Book of the Year

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

This program is read by the author.

In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions - discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities - and how difficult they are to remedy.

In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the White Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression.

In lively and biting prose, Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain a democracy. To point a more hopeful way forward, he looks for a common American identity and finds it in the passion for equality - the “hidden code” - that Americans of diverse persuasions have held for centuries. Today, we are challenged again to fight for equality and renew what Alexis de Tocqueville called “the art” of self-government. In its strong voice and trenchant analysis, Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national renewal.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

©2021 George Packer (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Concise.

concise. but covers enough history to gather the many threads as to the who, what and whys.

authors narration is very good. a pleasing timbre.

Insightful and thought-provoking

Is it possible for any human being to accurately sum up a society as conflicted and contradictory as ours? I'm doubtful, but George Packer's book is insightful and thought-provoking. My favorite chapter was the one called Equalizers, in which the author tells the stories of three American reformers (Horace Greeley, Frances Perkins, and Bayard Rustin), reflecting on their times and making trenchant comparisons to ours.

A very thoughtful and compelling book!

Every American needs to read this wonderful book
It is a book I will read twice.

Great insights

Hard words for tough times. wonder who will read it on the "other" side? The story remains unfinished.

this puts things in perspective

I loved the story and it really got me thinking. very saddening facts at times. my take away is that there is always hope if people just come together and converse.
just find people unlike you, have dinner with them and all will be fine.

A Sad Diagnosis along with a Hard & Simple Cure!

This is a very important Book which should be disseminated and discussed far more widely than it has been to date.

Packer has accurately limned the Fault Lines along which We Americans have created our Tribes. He traces the roots of our divisions far back beyond the Pandemic while assigning it a good amount of blame, but he acknowledges how deeply they run.

Unfortunately, after painting the Ugly Portrait of 2021 America, the only chemical solution he prescribes is the Cod Liver Oil that is probably too unbearable to stomach:

Turn off Twitter, Join a Bowling League, Meet Real Human Beings and Realize what a Fantastic Gift Life in American Democracy is and Work every Day to elect Leaders who will make it work!

He’s right of course and his recommended Policy Changes are spot on, but are we willing to do the hard work needed?

Wow! Terrific book!

This book does a deep dive into what is going on in America. You need this information as background to allow you to understand what has happened and what will happen. I highly recommend it.

Great read!

Packer has written a well researched, positive review of todays America. He makes a strong argument that we are the world’s best hope.

A very provacative read.

The narrator has a pleasant voice. The book is an excellent take on a very important question.

Would like more psychological analysis

I must say that this book was intriguing and excellently written - proven by the fact that I wanted it to continue and go more in depth; if anything it is too short in my opinion. The profiles of Greeley and Perkins seemed a little abrupt and out of place (why exactly were they included?), but I did learn about Rustin who was a completely unknown historical figure to me. I would like to see more of a mix of the psychological and sociological in a book like this a la George Lakoff. In my experiences with the many others in my life, and formerly in my life, who have a different (Conservative) political framework the basis is in their authoritarian and hierarchical worldview, and is deeply rooted in religious beliefs stemming from this worldview (and perhaps one could argue the religious beliefs remain foundational to these individuals because of their inherently authoritarian hierarchical beliefs). The household ethos in which a child is raised seems to be at play here in a very significant way and cannot be separated from the psychological and therefore political development of each individual. This is why we will always have two diametrically opposed political parties!
As an imposter member of “Smart” America I found the section on the Four Americas to be eerily spot-on and fascinating, bringing forward ideas I had not been exposed to previously. However, the imposter status so many of us in “Smart” America hold could perhaps be explored further. We do not all fit into simple categories- many of us struggle to maintain our foothold in our selected group, something George Orwell wrote of (to paraphrase, having all the education and bourgeois tastes of a gentleman (or woman) without the independent wealth required to maintain the lifestyle). I found myself rooting for some suggestions that could be considered almost Communistic in nature, while wanting this author to go a bit further in his recommendations for digging ourselves out of the mess we are in.
Ultimately a thought provoking book and certainly appreciated being exposed to some new ideas!