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Award-winning, Independent Bookshop in South Dublin

The Company of Books is an award-winning, independent bookshop in Ranelagh, Dublin 6. We stock an extensive range of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books which are available in the shop and on our site. 

Last Best Hope

GEB5KMABA3M66
€13.99
Out of stock
1
Product Details
ISBN: 9781529114584
Author: George Packer
Format: Paperback

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, theideology 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.

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About The Company Of Books

The Company of Books opened at 96 Ranelagh Village in November 2009 and has been gathering good reviews and loyal customers since.  Country Finalist for Independent Bookshop of the Year 2021 (Booksellers Association) and Dublin Winner of An Post Bookshop of the Year.

We have an eclectic mix of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books offering something for everyone. Spot a review of a book you’d like to read? Contact us and if we don’t have it, we’ll order it for you.

We also sell book vouchers and a range of beautiful cards and stationery.

Independent bookshop
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