This month’s review is by Renee Kahl
Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service
Edited by Michael Lewis
Eight separate stories, written in 2024, about civil servants who have made extraordinary contributions to the nation ‐‐ and to society and knowledge in general ‐‐ because they had the freedom and funding to apply their expertise in their federal jobs. Lewis, an investigative journalist, commissioned this project with no preconceptions, simply assigning the writers to find and research their own tales about public servants. The agencies covered run the gamut from the FDA to JPL (NASA), from the National Archives to the Justice Department, from the National Cemetery Administration to the IRS (Criminal Investigation Division).
To a person, these civil servants are described as limelight-hating, averse to credit, ingenious, resourceful and hyper focused. A couple are featured to showcase the impressive accomplishments of their whole department, but most are individuals who have produced incredible results for their country with limited budgets.
Lewis writes about the son of a Princeton professor who hates “elitism” and has a “deeper than usual desire for fairness,” who had shunned college in favor of coal mining and become fascinated in the 1970s with preventing longwall mine roof collapses, the cause of over 55,000 miner deaths since WWI. Taking a PhD in pillar design, he bounced from private industry through several federal agencies, convinced that both the industry and its close ally, academia, had no incentive to solve this intractable problem, only government did. He created his own niche (now in the Labor Dept.) as he steered the development of industry-wide standards and practices to prevent roof falls in underground mines. Over ten years, he not only used statistical analysis to standardize methods for evaluating the stability of mine roofs in their widely varying physical conditions, but he persuaded lawmakers to make them rules with teeth. His system finally became mandatory after one final disaster in 2007. There have been no roof collapse deaths since.
My other favorite profile is that of the accountant leading the cybercrime unit of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. The unit often uncovers the critical evidence in huge, multi-agency cases without receiving credit (just as FBI’s Elliot Ness was heralded for busting Al Capone instead of the undercover IRS agent who did the hard part). The much-maligned IRS is used to that. But you may be surprised to know that its cybercrime unit alone has rescued 23 sex trafficked kids; seized over 250,000 child abuse videos; arrested 370 alleged pedophiles; made the largest-ever seizure of cryptocurrency headed to Islamic terrorists and sent the head of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange to jail for money laundering. Not only are their adventures exciting, the unit has in the last 10 years returned more than $10 billion to victims and the U.S. Treasury.
The only piece that disappoints is Dave Eggers’ about Sierra Madre’s neighbor Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Focusing mainly on one dazzled, low-level scientist searching for extraterrestrial life, he ignores the breadth of JPL’s overall mission. See my Goodreads review for more.
Who Is Government? will be discussed at the Third Thursday Book Club January 15.
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