#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 “A must-read
for progressives who want a blueprint for reforming government so it can deliver for working
people.” —Barack Obama • “A terrific book...Powerful and persuasive.” —Fareed Zakaria •
“Spectacular…Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path
forward…Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the
imagination.” —David Brooks The New York Times From bestselling authors and journalistic
titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Abundance is a once-in-a-generation paradigm-shifting
call to renew a politics of plenty face up to the failures of liberal governance and abandon
the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life. To trace the history of the
twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years
of refusing to build sufficient housing America has a national housing crisis. After years of
limiting immigration we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the
consequences of climate change we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy
infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are
ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for
decades—because we haven’t been building enough. Abundance explains that our problems today
are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather one generation’s solutions have become
the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the
1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems
of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions
have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades our
capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.
Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to.
It means for liberals recognizing when the government is failing. It means for conservatives
recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a
liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds Klein and Thompson trace the
political economic and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of
abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country
this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the
fury so many rightfully feel.
