Books like The Big Con by Jonathan Chait

Michael Lewis exposes how political short‑sightedness threatens U.S. programs from food stamps to the Census to nuclear oversight, revealing the unsung public servants who keep the government’s critical functions running.

John B. Judis traces the rise of populism from its 1890s American roots to its 21st‑century influence across the United States and Europe, explaining how left‑ and right‑wing movements counter the elite consensus on globalization, free trade, and immigration.

Today's most widely read economist challenges America to reclaim the values that made it great. Here he studies the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has woven together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis. This book, written with Krugman's trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, may transform the debate about American social policy.--From publisher description.

"For more than thirty years, Kevin Phillips' insight into American politics and economics has helped to make history as well as record it. Now he turns his attention to the United States' history of great wealth and power, a sweeping cavalcade from the American Revolution to what he calls "the Second Gilded Age" at the turn of the twenty-first century.". "The Second Gilded Age has been staggering enough in its concentration of wealth to dwarf the original Gilded Age a hundred years earlier. However, the tech crash and then the horrible events of September 11, 2001, pointed out that great riches are as vulnerable as they have ever been. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips charts the ongoing American saga of great wealth - how it has been accumulated, its shifting sources, and its ups and downs over more than two centuries. He explores how the rich and politically powerful have frequently worked together to create or perpetuate privilege, often at the expense of the national interest and usually at the expense of the middle and lower classes."--BOOK JACKET.