Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the enlargement of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his debate in common feeling and everyday truth, he demonstrates that a common great constitutes the essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, among which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This technique can and should be reversed. But first we have to consider the moral commitments of citizenship and cautiously consider how exactly we relate with honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership.

Powerful, immediate, and utterly vital, that is a heartfelt missive from one of our most important political thinkers.