A bold case for massive population growth in the name of
national greatness-from Vox co-founder and host of "The Weeds"
podcast Matt Yglesias.
Matthew Yglesias co-founded Vox.com with Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell in 2014. He's currently a senior correspondent focused on politics and economic policy, and co-hosts "The Weeds" podcast twice a week. Before launching Vox, he wrote the Moneybag column for Slate and blogged for Think Progress, The Atlantic, TPM, and The American Prospect. Yglesias is the author of two books, most recently The Rent Is Too Damn High about the policy origins of the middle class housing affordability crisis in America. Yglesias was born and raised in New York City, but has lived in Washington DC since 2003.
"Many economics books devote themselves to cataloging the world’s
ills, and then end with a curiously short 'solutions' chapter that
doesn’t really solve most of the problems in the book. One Billion
Americans is a novel twist on this model. It . . . dives into
a long catalog of solutions. Most of them are very good ideas."—The
New York Times Book Review
"An argument that blends demography, economics, and politics . .
. The thesis is eminently arguable, but the book is packed
full of provocative ideas well worth considering."—Kirkus Reviews,
starred review
"Well researched and convincing. This optimistic call to action is
worth considering."—Publishers Weekly
"There are plenty of reasons to question how the U.S. might absorb
so many new citizens, but Yglesias makes a provocative case for a
new kind of American greatness."—The New York Times The
Morning newsletter
“The genius of this book is in showing that dilemmas that are
siloed across vast swaths of public policy are actually the same
problem, with linked solutions. A bracing, ambitious manifesto
that will leave you excited about the future that America could
build, and furious at the weakness and decline so-called
‘nationalists’ want to ensure.”—Ezra Klein, editor-at-large and
cofounder of Vox, bestselling author of Why We’re
Polarized
“One Billion Americans points to the practical changes that
the United States can make in order to earn back its inherited
position as the leader on the path toward universal freedom and
dignity. It warns us all that being the envy of the world is a
choice, not a fate.”—Paul Romer, Nobel
Prize–winning economist
“The goal of One Billion Americans is to make us think,
and that is exactly what it does. How can America continue to be a
global force? How can we make ‘American Exceptionalism’ a long-term
reality? Matthew Yglesias does an amazing job serving up ideas,
which we all need to seriously consider, in a book that is well
worth reading.”—Mark Cuban, entrepreneur
“Yglesias is an unpredictable thinker, willing to fly in the face
of tribal norms…One Billion Americans harkens back to a time
when policy discussions were not tribal melees.”—National
Review
"Argues persuasively for liberal policies in the service of a
nation-building agenda . . . Yglesias walks the line
successfully, managing not only to make a decisive case for several
critical policies but also to confront some malignant beliefs
historically present in liberal thought, all while appealing
to American national pride."—LiberalCurrents
“[Yglesias] ponders how the United States might evolve if it were
much more open to immigrants…[and] makes a bold case for openness
in his own country.”—The Economist
“The basic idea of the book, that America needs to commit to
remaining the world's most powerful, productive nation, is a
project that conservatives should emphatically support. Because
Yglesias is right: We need more people.”—Washington Free Beacon
“Audacious, purposefully provocative, and yet utterly
persuasive, One Billion Americans does what the best
works of political nonfiction do, recalibrating not just our sense
of what is possible, but of what is necessary. American decline
isn’t inevitable, as much as it seems to be. We can avoid it, if we
try.”—David Wallace-Wells, author of New York
Times bestseller The Uninhabitable Earth
"One of those rare, sparkling books that sets out to argue a point
that you are likely not to have a deeply settled opinion on, and
then forces you to work through a whole series of interconnected
views and assumptions you may not realize you had. Persuasive and
fresh, even where it may fail to convince you, it succeeds in
making you think. Really think."—Chris Hayes, host of "All In"
on MSNBC and the "Why is this Happening?" podcast, author of A
Colony in a Nation
"One Billion Americans is not just surpassingly
intelligent—it’s also very clever: To support his plea for a much
larger population, Yglesias sneaks in remedies for nearly every
domestic policy failure that now besets us. In the process of
arguing for a nation with more people, he provides the tools to
build one that is also more prosperous and more equitable. This is
an original, engaging, and necessary book."—Daniel Okrent, author
of The Guarded Gate and Last Call
“Yet the wide range of contributors of Yglesias’s plans—market
economists, social democrats, socialists,
even communitarian conservatives—suggest that there may be a
wider audience for these ideas than at first appears. Maybe
pandemic nihilism and the crumbling of American institutions
have gotten to me, but this little book is at once hopeful and
utterly depressing: A reminder that if there was consensus that the
US possessed a common wealth, it could be grown beyond
measure.”—Quartz
“Matt Yglesias’ new book, One Billion Americans, will be one
of the most important books of the decade.”—Exponents
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