🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. The 20th century was the American century.
2. Leonhardt argues that no three levers have had greater influence on the country: power, culture, and investment.
3. This nation is a nation of immigrants, and even though popular opinion does support more immigration, the modern American economy thrives precisely because of the immigrant workforce, the scholarly contributions of immigrants, and the willingness of immigrants to uproot themselves and urbanize once desolate, industry-less areas.

🎨 Impressions

Leonhardt is a really skilled water. If he wrote my U.S. history textbook, I would have enjoyed U.S. history in elementary school more than I already did.

The part about labor unions unexpectedly did not interest me that much.

America really sucks on a lot of fronts. The U.S. healthcare system is so flawed despite the average cost spent per person being higher here in the U.S. than in most other countries.

We have no paid parental leave!! Disappointing!

Education is a significant lever to ameliorating economic growth, gender equality, and wealth inequality.

Leans a little bit liberal at times, but I expected that.

How I Discovered It

I have been reading The Morning newsletter for years every morning. I love reading Leondhardt’s dissection and dissemination of the news and big policy concepts for lay people.

Who Should Read It?

Economists, political scientists, anyone who wants to be educated.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

<aside> 💡 How my life / behaviour / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

</aside>

• “The combination of the old left’s torpor during the 1960s and the New Left’s narrow focus meant that the country no longer had a mass movement centered on lifting most Americans’ living standards. It had split into two movements: a progressive, elite movement and a group of largely self-interested labor unions. The sum of the parts did not come close to equaling the whole”.
• “One factor especially important to immigrants’ success is their willingness to move, Abramitzky and Bouston discovered. Native-born Americans often feel tied to the place where they live because of family, friends, or other local ties. Immigrants more frequently pull up roots to move from one American city to another for better job opportunities or more affordable housing.”
• “For Progressives interested in building these kinds of movements, there is one important step that is also hard. It involves listening more to the views of working-class Americans. It requires making the left less upscale than it is now and more inclusive of people who are not white-collar professionals.”