Some Words

Recently I finished More Equal Than Others, Godfrey Hodgson’s historical survey of America from 1975 to 2000.

It is rare that I feel a book should be read by absolutely everyone. This book might go on that list though. With the election season in full swing now, I cannot help having large swaths of the coverage tinted by my having read this book. As a history of the last quarter of the twentieth century, with some references sneaking in as late as 2003, it does an amazing job of outlining how we got here. My political memory of that quarter century is handicapped by being under the age of 12 for much of it, you might begin to see why I liked it so much.

There are limitations of course, the book came out several years ago, and does not know about the decline of the Republican party that seems to be going on right now. But on the whole, it does a fantastic job of summing up twenty five years in three hundred pages, which is an admirable feat in itself. It also pulls off the deft trick of not being too dry, despite a healthy dose of facts and figures supplied as the basis of Hodgson’s arguments. Of course, that dryness comes with the territory, but Hodgson is a talented enough writer to keep things moving at a very brisk pace.

I’ve already begun lending it out to any co-worker wiling to read it.