Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Michael Lewis (Author, Narrator), & 7 more
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,646)
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Best Books of the Year So Far 2025
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“Michael Lewis has this incredible ability to zoom in on one person's story, and from there reveals something much bigger about our culture. His books leave you seeing the world differently, and his books about federal workers are no exception.”—Katie Couric
As seen on CBS Mornings, CNN Anderson Cooper, ABC News Live, MSNBC Morning Joe, and many more
Who works for the government and why does their work matter? An urgent and absorbing civics lesson from an all-star team of writers and storytellers.
The government is a vast, complex system that Americans pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone.
Michael Lewis invited his favorite writers, including Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Vowell, and W. Kamau Bell, to join him in finding someone doing an interesting job for the government and writing about them.
The stories they found are unexpected, riveting, and inspiring, including a former coal miner devoted to making mine roofs less likely to collapse, saving thousands of lives; an IRS agent straight out of a crime thriller; and the manager who made the National Cemetery Administration the best-run organization, public or private, in the entire country. Each essay shines a spotlight on the essential behind-the-scenes work of exemplary federal employees.
Whether they’re digitizing archives, chasing down cybercriminals, or discovering new planets, these public servants are committed to their work and universally reluctant to take credit. Expanding on the Washington Post series, the vivid profiles in Who Is Government? blow up the stereotype of the irrelevant bureaucrat. They show how the essential business of government makes our lives possible, and how much it matters.
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©2025 Michael Lewis (P)2025 Penguin Audio
Listening Length
6 hours and 43 minutes
Product details
Listening Length 6 hours and 43 minutes
Author Michael Lewis
Narrator Michael Lewis, Sarah Vowell, John Lanchester, Geraldine Brooks, Casey Cep, Dave Eggers, W. Kamau Bell
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Customer reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
1,646 global ratings
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Customers find this book to be a must-read, with one noting it features stories by six different authors. Moreover, the book effectively highlights how government agencies improve people's lives and delivers significant value for tax dollars. Additionally, customers appreciate the book's timing and character development, with one review highlighting the unsung heroes of government work.
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Top reviews from the United States
sharon f. leff
5.0 out of 5 stars Not a Cure for Distrust of Government, But a Start!
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2025
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Okay, it is easy to blame government for all its failures despite elections, but the government is comprised of an amazing number of unsung heroes, modest civil servants, committed to serving America. As Michael Lewis has always done, he asks questions, investigates, explores, and listens.
This time, Lewis invited some writers to assist. Spotlighting some of these amazing individuals inspires, reassures, and validates the best of government. Unfortunately, we are living in a time when DOGE budget cuts, myopic politicians, and public ignorance threaten the various individuals, agencies, and programs that have benefited Americans.
Read slowly, chapters at a time while balancing with other reading, but well worth the reading.
2 people found this helpful
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Daniel Dellaferrera
5.0 out of 5 stars A timeless idea that is made vital by the current crisis
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2025
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"Who Is Government" would be an excellent book regardless of when it was published. Michael Lewis not only wrote two excellent chapters for the book, but he also selected six authors who added their voices to the accurate depiction of how selfless public servants improve our lives. What makes the book not just excellent but also vital to the health of Civics in the US is the timing of its publication, though. "Who is Government" is a crucial shield against the vilification of career government officials (and the contempt towards public service as an ethos) that has grown louder and infected more than 70 million Americans since Trump started his baseless accusations about "The Deep State."
I read and re-read Lewis' previous assessment of the strong service ethic in the Federal Government (and how it was dismissed and neglected by the first Trump Administration). "The Fifth Risk" left me wondering about how many more examples there would be of public servants working hard on behalf of their fellow citizens while trying to stay as far away as possible from the spotlight. I'm happy to report that "Who Is Government" delivers a near-perfect answer to my question.
The only sad reaction this book elicits is indirect, and it got worse as I read the negative reviews here. Chances are that those who need to understand how the Federal Government meets their needs far better than a self-aggrandizing POTUS (and his Apartheid Nepobaby sidekick) ever could will never assess "Who Is Government" with intellectual honesty, or read it at all. Ultimately, we are not talking about a fight between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives. This is a fight between knowledge and willful ignorance. That the latter seem to be winning bothers me less than how irreparable the consequences of their temporary victory might be for the US and for the rest of the world.
In view of this, I choose the same path Lewis and his co-authors chose. Shine a light on the valuable work good people do, explain as clearly as possible that work helps even those that attack it without understanding it, and hope that we'l be able to convince some of them that they were wrong.
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31 people found this helpful
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Carlos
4.0 out of 5 stars diferent twist on Michael lewis
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2025
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Compelling stories from ‘Boring’ places. A great service is done by this book in an era of DOGE and wacky govt experiments
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AK
5.0 out of 5 stars A quick and thoroughly enjoyable read
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2025
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Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable read even though I found a number of stories heavily biased towards what could be described as "progressive" views. While the book doesn't draw any specific conclusions, it sort of nudges you towards the view that the government (the system and the people) is noble, hardworking despite being underfunded and underplayed. In short something we need more of. In real life the picture is much more complex with both being concurrently true: lots of well-meaning hardworking people and well intentioned programs AND a good deal of dead wait and waste, fraud, and abuse. We should be able to keep both thoughts in our minds at the same time and to have a civil, constructive discourse about them. These are the stories that need telling, stories about people who need to be celebrated. And, not surprisingly, I cried when reading the last one.
4 people found this helpful
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Osprey
5.0 out of 5 stars Some of Our Best Storytellers and a Story That Needs Telling
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2025
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Michael Lewis and his colleagues do us all a great service by shining a light on the dedication, genius, and effectiveness of those who make public service their mission. We are too easily convinced by the politically driven narrative that those who work for us in the public sector are goldbricking parasites feeding at the government trough, but this book is an inspiring tour of several examples that give the lie to that wildly inaccurate conventional wisdom. Anyone interested in the functions of our government should read it, and the good news is that it’s a fascinating and entertaining read!
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book About The Many Incredible Federal Workers!!
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2025
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I really needed to read about the incredible value added to each of our lives by our very dedicated and talented federal government workers! Unfortunately, our current leadership has the opinion that the federal workforce is made up of poor workers that are being grossly overpaid! I just hope more people read this book and fight the leaders trying to shrink this valuable workforce that will not be replaced by private companies unless we are willing to pay at least twice the costs of our current civil servants!! Thanks Mr. Lewis for this outstanding book!
One person found this helpful
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JC
4.0 out of 5 stars A Glimpse Into The Possible
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2025
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Easy read with a hopeful theme. It should be required reading for anyone making decisions on the structure of government. It did leave me with a bit of saddness when read in today's environment (early 2025) given it represented what can be done when the collective we decide to do good. It would be nice to return to that time and work together to create the world we want to live in.
15 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
cf
5.0 out of 5 stars Public Service keeps in rolling
Reviewed in Canada on May 3, 2025
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Required reading for all citizens who are loyal to democracy and their country.
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https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-lewis/who-is-government/
WHO IS GOVERNMENT?
THE UNTOLD STORY OF PUBLIC SERVICE
edited by Michael Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2025
Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government.
bookshelf
shop now
Deep state, shmeep state: a spirited rebuttal to the canard that federal civil servants are nest-featherers up to no good.
“The fact is that federal employees go to work every day with the explicit job description of making the lives of everyday Americans better.” So writes W. Kamau Bell, one of the writers drawn into this Washington Post project to explore the federal workforce and the things its members do in their daily labors. As volume editor Lewis notes, the Post series, although about eight times larger than the usual feature, saw a fourfold increase in readership—perhaps not so surprising, given that D.C. is a company town, but noteworthy in that the series painstakingly showed readers the myriad ways in which government is not the demonized bugaboo of Reagan and Trump supporters. What do the people of the Department of Agriculture do? Lewis asks and answers: “They preserve rural America from extinction, among other things.” Lewis, best known for his 2003 book Moneyball, profiles a mine inspector at the Department of Labor who, committed to making mining safer, developed protocols and technologies such as the “stability factor” to do just that, even though “industry executives…made it clear…that they viewed safety as a subject for wimps and losers.” The National Cemetery Administration, writes Casey Cep, may be unknown, but its 2,300-odd employees “bury more than 140,000 veterans and their family members each year” while tending the graves of more than 4 million veterans. Dave Eggers visits the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is quietly asking questions about life in the universe, sending out spacecraft and monitoring the heavens while employing some of the best minds in the world—about a third of them women. All the contributions similarly press the point that the government’s work is useful—and no one else but government workers are likely to do it.Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government.
===
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-lewis/who-is-government/
WHO IS GOVERNMENT?
THE UNTOLD STORY OF PUBLIC SERVICE
edited by Michael Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2025
Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government.
bookshelfshop now
Deep state, shmeep state: a spirited rebuttal to the canard that federal civil servants are nest-featherers up to no good.
“The fact is that federal employees go to work every day with the explicit job description of making the lives of everyday Americans better.” So writes W. Kamau Bell, one of the writers drawn into this Washington Post project to explore the federal workforce and the things its members do in their daily labors. As volume editor Lewis notes, the Post series, although about eight times larger than the usual feature, saw a fourfold increase in readership—perhaps not so surprising, given that D.C. is a company town, but noteworthy in that the series painstakingly showed readers the myriad ways in which government is not the demonized bugaboo of Reagan and Trump supporters. What do the people of the Department of Agriculture do? Lewis asks and answers: “They preserve rural America from extinction, among other things.” Lewis, best known for his 2003 book Moneyball, profiles a mine inspector at the Department of Labor who, committed to making mining safer, developed protocols and technologies such as the “stability factor” to do just that, even though “industry executives…made it clear…that they viewed safety as a subject for wimps and losers.” The National Cemetery Administration, writes Casey Cep, may be unknown, but its 2,300-odd employees “bury more than 140,000 veterans and their family members each year” while tending the graves of more than 4 million veterans. Dave Eggers visits the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is quietly asking questions about life in the universe, sending out spacecraft and monitoring the heavens while employing some of the best minds in the world—about a third of them women. All the contributions similarly press the point that the government’s work is useful—and no one else but government workers are likely to do it.Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government.
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