Last Best Hope

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.

Democracy seems to be teetering on the edge, and renowned author George Packer shines a spotlight on the fractures that led to today's prevalent feeling of American despair. Last Best Hope is a sharply observed exploration of the narratives that have shaped America: the individualistic Free America, the elitist Smart America, the nationalistic Real America, and Just America, fraught with inter-group oppression.

With the turbulence of 2020 as the backdrop, from the devastating pandemic to economic crises and contentious elections, the book presents an insightful dissection of America's social ethos. Each narrative is explored under his discerning lens, making a case for how they have collectively failed to sustain the country's democracy.

To point a more hopeful way forward, Packer 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.