"In 2021, almost nothing is harder to write than a fresh take on the multiple crises confronting post-Trump America. But with this sharp, short new book, that is exactly what George Packer has given us, confirming his place as one of our most valuable journalists . . . Packer's courage [is] the closest we have to Orwell's." --Charles Kaiser, The Guardian

"Like many public intellectuals who are worth reading, George Packer . . . [doesn't] toe a predictable line . . . Packer is at his best when he ties his thesis about Americans' loss of the art of self-government to the inequality that he has covered extensively and intimately in his career as a journalist." --Emily Bazelon, The New York Times Book Review

"Packer has a story to tell about our decline, and he tells it well . . . Packer's sharp portraits of [America's factions] are the heart of this book . . . [His] account of America's decline into destructive tribalism is always illuminating and often dazzling." --William Galston, The Washington Post

"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. Americans seeking to understand our current moment--which is to say, most Americans--will find much to profitably ponder in these pages." --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 the country'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