
Last Best Hope
America in Crisis and Renewal
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Narrated by:
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George Packer
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By:
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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 AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















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authors narration is very good. a pleasing timbre.
Concise.
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Insightful and thought-provoking
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It is a book I will read twice.
A very thoughtful and compelling book!
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Great insights
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just find people unlike you, have dinner with them and all will be fine.
this puts things in perspective
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Please read this book!!!!!!!!!!!
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It is full of sadness at how divided we are and concludes with a number of remedies.
We can move forward together if we work together. For democracy, self government and equality are worth the work.
It warrants re-reading to capture the fullness of his view of America. You won’t be disappointed.
Thank you George Packer
Could not put this down.
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Timely and important
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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?
A Sad Diagnosis along with a Hard & Simple Cure!
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Wow! Terrific book!
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