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In this landmark volume, Nicholas Eberstadt answers that pressing question. Drawing on decades of extraordinary scholarship, he lays out the nation’s “human arithmetic” in demographic, social, and economic terms.
He demonstrates that 21st-century America, for all its marvels and blessings, is nonetheless beset by a “New Misery”: the practical and moral dilemmas of wealth in the absence of well-being. New social afflictions hide in plain sight—among them the astonishing flight of millions of men from the workforce and the surge in criminality, with over 20 million former felons living in our midst.
In America’s Human Arithmetic, Eberstadt offers a compelling and frightening diagnosis of modern social dysfunction. He shows that the United States’ best years may yet be to come—but not if Americans are unwilling to face the challenges their human arithmetic lays bare.
List of Illustrations
Foreword (Robert Doar)
Preface
1. “America After COVID-19: Which Future?”, Irving Kristol Award Lecture, American Enterprise Institute (2020)
2. “Prosperous Paupers and Affluent Savages”, Society (1996)
3. The Great Society at 50: The Triumph and the Tragedy, American Enterprise Institute (2014)
4. “The Rise of Entitlements in Modern America, 1960–2010,” A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic, Templeton Press (2012)
5. “Our Miserable 21st Century,” Commentary (2017)
6. “Hiding in Plain Sight: An Army of Jobless Men, Lost in an Overlooked Depression,” Men Without Work, Templeton Press (2016)
7. “Idle Hands: Time Use and the Male Flight from Work,” Men Without Work, Templeton Press (2016)
8. “Criminality and the Decline of Work for American Men,” Men Without Work, Templeton Press
9. Introduction to Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition, Templeton Press (2022)
10. “The Geography of Work,” National Affairs (2023) (coauthored with Peter Van Ness)
11. “Education and Men Without Work,” National Affairs (2020)
12. “America’s Education Crisis Is a National Security Threat,” Foreign Affairs (2022) (coauthored with Evan Abramsky)
13. “Can America Cope with Population Decline?,” National Review (2021)
14. “With Great Demographics Comes Great Power,” Foreign Affairs (2019)
15. Lessons for an Unserious Superpower: The “Scoop” Jackson Legacy and US Foreign Policy, American Enterprise Institute (2024)
Afterword (Yuval Levin)
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index