Book in the news: the death of US democracy?

published 19 October 2018

Michael Lewis is best known for writing about business and Wall Street. But this book "explores the hazards of entrusting a country to an administration that loathes government and is motivated by avarice", says Sophie McBain in the New Statesman. Key government agencies have been put in the hands of appointees who are "usually inappropriate, underqualified and fundamentally uninterested in the job".The consequences of this range from "apocalyptic possibilities, such as nuclear disaster" to longer-term worries such as "the defunding of scientific research".

Lewis has made little effort "to disguise his partisan leanings", says Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times. But meticulous research has allowed him to make a convincing case that "faith in government as a place where mostly well-meaning people [protect] us all from total chaos" has "eroded alarmingly in recent years".

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Could that be because successive administrations "have expanded government power to the point where it has become over-obtrusive"? asks George Mellon in The Wall Street Journal. Arguably, voters elected Trump to reverse this trend; he isn't simply neglecting government agencies because he is "a dangerous boob". He has been here for two years "and the government still functions", so perhaps Lewis should calm down.

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri