Abundance

Written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Narrated by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2025 • NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2025 • KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOKS OF 2025 • NPR BOOKS WE LOVE 2025

“A must-read for progressives who want a blueprint for reforming government so it can deliver for working people.” —Barack Obama • “A terrific book...Powerful and persuasive.” —Fareed Zakaria • “Spectacular…Offers a comprehensive indictment of the current problems and a clear path forward…Klein and Thompson usher in a mood shift. They inspire hope and enlarge the imagination.” —David Brooks, The New York Times

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.

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Mar 18, 2025
• ISBN: 9781797168609

Ezra Klein

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.

Reviews for Abundance

[stampolis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A deeply cynical critique of the United States designed to increase the authors' pocketbooks while explicitly dodging any proposals for solutions. While Thompson suggests that scientists should receive increased tax funding because science leaps forward unexpectedly when thousands of talented young scientists conduct unrestricted research and experiments, Klein bloviates about dissolving county and city governments to reduce the annoyance of citizen involvement and thus strengthen government power of the executive branch at state or federal levels.

[Samuel Saker Kunkel · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It's hard to know where to start with everything that's wrong with this book. Some of the analysis is correct, on energy policy at least (wit the notable omission of fission), but much of the rest is antimaterialist idealistic drivel. Even the stated goals of their policy proposals are retched: if Ezra and Derek's utopia is drone-delivery and AI-assisted zoom jobs, look out a window, we're already here man. In short, many vibes, no substance, a Blue MAGA Manifesto. Highly thought provoking in the way that only a book that gets even the questions wrong can be. Read it and seethe.

[Irida · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've listened to half of the audio. Unfortunately it couldn't keep me although this theme is very interesting for me. I don't know if the details were too specific... But since I'm not from America and i don't live there either, it's boring for me to listen to it.

[jasonbowden1000 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Who else is pumped to hand over the power grid to Big Tech, or let hedge fund dbags buy every house in America?

we are cooked

[michael · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An insightful book with an outlined direction for the Democratic party, the authors outline a set of policies that step over the culture wars, presenting prescriptions that most Americans could get behind. While not completely satisfying in its dismally of conservationism and utopian vision, it practically addresses our current political moment.

[Kyle Jarrett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hey fresh, thought, provoking, and cautiously optimistic take on our current world situation

[C M · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is propaganda. A positive narrative for TRESCREAL Techbros. Pure bs promises and views on a future made up by (only) wt men with no ground on reality and borderline delusional. Thinking for 2 seconds on any proposal is enough to see the lack of awareness.