This one’s a couple of years old, but it’s so well done, I couldn’t skip it. For a profound diagnosis of what ails America and the West, I suggest The Twilight of the American State by Pierre Schlag, University Distinguished Professor and Byron R. White Professor of Law at the University of Colorado. You can find it here. https://press.umich.edu/Books/T/Twilight-of-the-American-State2

Remember tackling great thinkers in college such as Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Rousseau, Marx, Freud, Weber, Rawls, Nozick, Habermas, etc. It was really rough going but so worth it in the end. Pierre Schlag’s “Twilight” is like that. He explains better than anyone I have encountered what is happening to us as various efforts to articulate a sound theory of government collapse in the face of inabilities to tackle big challenges such as inequality; culture wars; climate change, etc. My favorite chapter is the description of neoliberalism, a buzz word I had thought a meaningless gesture aimed at pinning on corporate excess everything we don’t like about contemporary life. Schlag explains how we are trapped in systems that require folks to exploit each other just to survive. But the best thing about the book for me is that it made me feel less lonely. Having someone so astutely diagnose our reasons for despair made me feel there are allies in the task of building a better world. It’s not nihilist. It’s inspirational. Don’t miss it.