The Premonition

Reviews

When the stories of our times are told, there will be no more seminal documents than the books of Michael Lewis. He is so good everyone else may as well pack up. Michael Lewis is one of the premier chroniclers of our age. Superb ... It is tremendous fun, tremendously told. There is a lot to take from it - about the inertia of the US civil service, about the "malignant obedience" of middle managers, about how people fearful of the pandemic were treated with the "wary indulgence of the sane in the presence of the fanatic" ... Among those truths, in a familiar lesson for much of the world this year, is the danger of hubris. A gripping story ... This is a book about some brave, curious people who tried hard to swim against the tide. As always in a Lewis book they are brought vividly alive ... Lewis is a master of his form. A fluid intellectual thriller ... As always with Lewis, the book is full of fascinating facts and personal angles. [Reading The Premonition] we see a disturbing common trait emerging in our country and others: the unwillingness to prioritise people's lives over ideas and ingrained structures. It is hard to think of a writer who has had more success than Michael Lewis at turning forbiddingly complex situations into propulsive nonfiction narratives ... Without his ever having to spell it out, Lewis's message comes across very powerfully: the US government, in its institutional dysfunction, is in danger of abandoning its citizens to a private sector that is even less equipped to deal with large-scale disasters such as Covid. Expand reviews