A Necessary Evil - by Garry Wills (Paperback)

About the Book

In a provocative look at the essential role of government in American society, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills examines the roots of both mainstream and extremist distrust of government. Taking readers from the rancorous debates of the Founding Fathers through the Civil War to contemporary contretemps over gun control, abortion, and terrorist acts, he uses historical fact to destroy deeply embedded fictions.

Book Synopsis

In A Necessary Evil, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills shows that distrust of government is embedded deep in the American psyche. From the revolt of the colonies against king and parliament to present-day tax revolts, militia movements, and debates about term limits, Wills shows that American antigovernment sentiment is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of our history. By debunking some of our fondest myths about the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the taming of the frontier, Wills shows us how our tendency to hold our elected government in disdain is misguided.

Review Quotes

Curtis Gans The Washington Post A lucid, important, and rigorous defense of government.

Edmund S. Morgan The New York Review of Books A tract for the times...a plea for common sense in allowing government to do good without the paranoid obstructions of the misguided or malevolent.

Michael Beschloss The Washington Post Book World Wills displays once again his relentlessly questioning, subtle, and versatile mind.

Taylor Branch The New Yorker Not since Hannah Arendt wrote on revolution and on totalitarian psychology has a scholar of such broad classical training addressed a popular readership on issues of such moment, and with such animating reverence for what Arendt called the public space among citizens.

About the Author

Garry Wills is the author of 21 books, including the bestseller Lincoln at Gettysburg (winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award), John Wayne's America, Certain Trumpets, Under God, and Necessary Evil. A frequent contributor to many national publications, including the New York Times Magazine and the New York Review of Books, he is also an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University and lives in Evanston, Illinois.