PositiveThe Washington PostSteve Almond[\'s]...book is notable not so much for advancing new ideas but for synthesizing almost every major argument about what ails our country—including, among much else, racism, xenophobia and rampant economic inequality—and for offering a response to each. Almond is staunchly progressive, and the finished product, if often one-sided, nevertheless combines \'statistical data, personal anecdote, cultural criticism, literary analysis, and when called for, outright intellectual theft\' into a whole that is lively, stimulating and pleasantly discursive ... Almond is an excellent prose stylist, and his book is a welcome change of pace from its mostly wonky competitors, though its reliance on literary models can induce the occasional eye roll ... And while his digressive style is one of the book’s greatest pleasures, it also makes it difficult to draw any single, unified conclusion from these essays—beyond, perhaps, the general belief that we should take participatory democracy more seriously and go about it with a bit more empathy.
