
Who Is Government?
The Untold Story of Public Service
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By:
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Michael Lewis
About this listen
“Perhaps never before has there been a book better timed or more urgent.”—Washington Post
“Michael Lewis has this incredible ability to zoom in on one person's story, and from there reveals something much bigger about our culture. His books leave you seeing the world differently, and his books about federal workers are no exception.”—Katie Couric
As seen on CBS Mornings, CNN Anderson Cooper, ABC News Live, MSNBC Morning Joe, and many more
Who works for the government and why does their work matter? An urgent and absorbing civics lesson from an all-star team of writers and storytellers.
The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone.
Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in finding someone doing an interesting job for the government and writing about them. The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring, including a former coal miner devoted to making mine roofs less likely to collapse, saving thousands of lives; an IRS agent straight out of a crime thriller; and the manager who made the National Cemetery Administration the best-run organization, public or private, in the entire country. Each essay shines a spotlight on the essential behind-the-scenes work of exemplary federal employees.
Whether they’re digitizing archives, chasing down cybercriminals, or discovering new planets, these public servants are committed to their work and universally reluctant to take credit. Expanding on the Washington Post series, the vivid profiles in Who Is Government? blow up the stereotype of the irrelevant bureaucrat. They show how the essential business of government makes our lives possible, and how much it matters.
©2025 Michael Lewis (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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More historical than practical
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Performance
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Only a few hours in
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The Sum of Us
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all.
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Good book but Recording tech is poor. Glitches
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Critic reviews
"This eye-opening, multifaceted ode to public service. . . feels both urgent and moving."—The Guardian
"A spirited rebuttal to the canard that federal civil servants are nest-featherers up to no good. . . . All the contributions. . . press the point that the government’s work is useful—and no one else but government workers are likely to do it. Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government."—Kirkus Reviews
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In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.
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Finally!
- By Anonymous User on 02-08-22
By: Michael Lewis
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Next
- The Future Just Happened
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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We are in the midst of one of the greatest status revolutions ever, and it's a brave new world indeed. Who better to guide us through it than Michael Lewis, whose subversive, trenchant humor is the perfect match to his subject matter. Here is an audiobook as fresh as tomorrow's headlines, and as entertaining as its best selling predecessors.
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Worth your time
- By Jason on 03-02-03
By: Michael Lewis
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Making Winners
- The Coaching Explosion
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis’ podcast Against the Rules is dedicated to examining what's happened to fairness. It feels like there's less of it every day, and one of the “haves” of those who are better off includes access to coaching. But does having a coach help or hinder us?
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ML’s Best Of Coaching From His Podcast
- By Photo Curt on 03-01-23
By: Michael Lewis
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The Premonition
- A Pandemic Story
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For those who could read between the lines, the censored news out of China was terrifying. But the president insisted there was nothing to worry about. Fortunately, we are still a nation of skeptics. Fortunately, there are those among us who study pandemics and are willing to look unflinchingly at worst-case scenarios. Michael Lewis’ taut and brilliant nonfiction thriller pits a band of medical visionaries against the wall of ignorance that was the official response of the Trump administration to the outbreak of COVID-19.
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Why not Michael Lewis?
- By Brian on 05-04-21
By: Michael Lewis
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Coach
- Lessons on the Game of Life
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 57 mins
- Unabridged
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There was a turning point in Michael Lewis' life, in a baseball game when he was 14 years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do."
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A Nostalgia Tour of a Great Man
- By Darwin8u on 08-23-14
By: Michael Lewis
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Flash Boys
- Revolta em Wall Street [A Wall Street Revolt]
- By: Michael Lewis, Denise Bottmann - tradução
- Narrated by: Bruno Leut
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Todo mundo imagina as bolsas de valores mais ou menos da mesma forma: pessoas nervosas na sala do pregão, gritando sem parar, agitando braços e empunhando telefones. Mas essa imagem já era. Agora, as negociações são realizadas por programas de computador, dentro de caixas-pretas localizadas em edifícios cercados de forte proteção. A cada dia, bilhões e bilhões de dólares circulam pelas redes de fibra óptica sem sequer passar por um corretor de carne e osso.
By: Michael Lewis, and others
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Moneyball
- The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Moneyball reveals a quest for something as elusive as the Holy Grail, something that money apparently can't buy: the secret of success in baseball. The logical places to look would be the giant offices of major league teams and the dugouts. But the real jackpot is a cache of numbers collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors.
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Excellent Book, Outstanding Narration, Sloppy Edit
- By Dirk Turgid on 03-05-12
By: Michael Lewis
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Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
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Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
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Why Nothing Works
- Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back
- By: Marc J. Dunkelman
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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America was once a country that did big things—we built the world’s greatest rail network, a vast electrical grid, interstate highways, abundant housing, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and more. But today, even while facing a host of pressing challenges—a housing shortage, a climate crisis, a dilapidated infrastructure—we feel stuck, unable to move the needle. Why?
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More historical than practical
- By Eric on 05-04-25
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The Money Culture
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of ’29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade. In these trenchant, often hilarious true tales we meet the colorful movers and shakers who commanded the headlines and rewrote the rules.
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Not the normal great Michael Lewis
- By Me on 05-12-12
By: Michael Lewis
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Playing to Win
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 2 hrs and 13 mins
- Original Recording
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All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.
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Great Listen
- By Brian Bray on 10-15-20
By: Michael Lewis
What listeners say about Who Is Government?
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- Erik Edstrom
- 04-02-25
Great listen but side-steps critical questions
This book does a great job telling interesting vignettes of exceptional public servants doing valuable work. These public servants are by no means average and hardly representative of the average value for money taxpayers are getting from their government.
This book makes the reader believe that government spending is a good investment. But a good investment when compared to what? What tradeoffs are we making because we chose to fund this bureaucracy— and are we better, or worse-off because of it?
Money returned to taxpayers is also valuable; as is solving the same problem the government is trying to solve — better and cheaper — in the private sector. These second, and weightier, questions are side-stepped throughout this book.
An interesting read but it misses these core questions — plus, I would have opted for professional narrators for Audible. Some of the voices were a bit grating, reducing enjoyment.
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- MT
- 04-13-25
Very well written and read
It was nice to hear each author read the pieces. Well worth listening to and thinking about.
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- Lourdes Manning
- 03-29-25
A Must Read!
Stories highlighting how important civil servants are to all of us. I shed tears especially as that civil service is now in jeopardy.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sue B.
- 04-15-25
Cheers for the unsung heroes
We can’t all be super heroes, but there are many more of them living amongst us than one would guess. It’s wonderful to hear their stories. More please.
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- Garden Serene
- 03-26-25
Great stories of individual contributions
There are some great individual stories about government employees who have done some amazing work behind the scenes.
Some of the narrators are very annoying to listen to. Some are great.
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- Denise Duffy
- 04-03-25
Enlightened
I thought the entirety of the information on government agencies were incredible. I was blown away. Everyone should read at least one of these stories and their view of government agencies will be forever changed.
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- Vernon E.
- 04-04-25
The breadth of magnificent work across government.
This is an absolutely magnificent collection of vignettes about the contributions of government employees in diverse areas we don’t usually think of. As heart warming as these accounts are, one cannot escape the awareness that is exactly these things that Musk and DOGE are deliberately trying to destroy.
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- Larry Schmeiser
- 04-07-25
Real Bureaucrats
Putting human faces on the false image of Federal bureaucracy . Documenting what is being destroyed by DOGE.
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- J. Jones
- 04-17-25
Unsung Heroes Minus Ego
At a time when the Trump administration is using a chainsaw to cut government spending, little effort is made to study and understand what federal workers do, and whether their important, necessary and cost effective.
This book underscores why it is important to truly understand what each federal worker does. Taxpayers generally have little understanding of the myriad services performed by government that makes life safer and more enjoyable.
Reading this book made want to push elected officials to consider fair taxation rather than wholesale cutting of federal workers and needed services.
This book should be required reading in high schools and colleges, along with a new emphasis on civics.
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- Joshua Wolinsky
- 04-05-25
Mr. Lewis always timely
Mr. Lewis does it again. A book that makes you think about a topic at the exact moment you should be doing the thinking.
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1 person found this helpful