Derek Thompson discusses ABUNDANCE

The Georgia Center for the Book and A Cappella Books welcome bestselling author and host of the podcast, Plain English, Derek Thompson. He will discuss his new book, which he co-authored with Ezra Klein (Klein will not be in attendance), Abundance.

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase from our friends at A Cappella Books at the venue for you to have signed by our guest that evening. 

This event will be oversold to account for no-shows. Please arrive early to secure your seats. 

From bestselling authors and journalistic titans Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life.

About the Book
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

About the Authors
Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast “Plain English.” A news analyst with NPR, Derek appears weekly on the national news show “Here and Now” and is a contributor to CBS News. He is the author of the national bestseller “Hit Makers.” He lives in Washington, DC.

Ezra Klein is an opinion columnist and host of the award-winning “Ezra Klein Show” podcast at The New York Times. He is the author of Why We’re Polarized, an instant New York Times bestseller, named one of Barack Obama’s top books of 2022. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Additional Venue Information:

This event will take place after the Decatur Library has closed for regular business. To access the Auditorium, please enter the building therough the Lower Level, Rear Doors. Limited parking is available in the Parking Deck behind the Library. We reccommend parking in the Lower Level of the Parking Deck for best access to the entry doors. When you arrive at the location, drive down the Library's driveway, passing the bookdrop on your right, and the Upper Level Parking Deck entrace to your right. Continue down the driveway and enter the Lower Level of the Parking Deck by taking the next entrance to your right, across from the tennis courts. Doors will open at 6:30 P.M.