In 2020 the Wheatley Institution at BYU hosted a series of Zoom speakers. I eagerly signed up for the [a:Jonathan Sacks|55332|Jonathan Sacks|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1263131090p2/55332.jpg] forum and, at then end, the host included a note on the following speaker--Yuval Levin. I was intrigued by the attitude of hope portrayed in the short bio he quoted so I added this book, his most recent, to my list.

I find his observations astute, especially his notes on the evolution of our congressional and executive leadership and his points regarding the problems with our Elite(that whole chapter was beautiful). I also appreciated how he addressed the college campus issues, the idea of "forms," performativity, and the problem with "celebrity" culture and social media. His illustration of the Right/Left flip of implementation and enforcement/less regulations was worth the time. And my favorite parts were his constant illustrations of the need for both sides and viewpoints--particularly his take on the issues of race and elitism.

Finally, I thought his points about the side-effects of partisanship, the changes made in journalism, and social media on our policy-making were correct, at least in my own life. He states, and I included the quote, that when we make policy in panic-mode it is ineffective. I would agree. It, too often, invites irrationality to the table.

Several things that I thought could have been improved:

--More stats. There were several times when I was incredibly fascinated with an interesting claim and there was no citation. Particularly when the statements hit closer to home.
-- Less words. Mr. Levin has a set of decent ideas, but they are hidden in long paragraphs that could use some paring down. It really felt like a 60 page thesis that was elongated for a book format. ( )