The Public Good

I just read the New York Times review of a book I want to read. The book's title sounds like a downer: Ill Fares the Land, by British historian Tony Judt.

But according to the NYT, it presents at heart an optimistic view of possibilities facing us. The book is described as "a dying man’s sense of a dying idea: the notion that the state can play a significant role in its citizens’ lives without imperiling their liberties." Just the kind of book we all need to read.