Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service

Who works for the government, and why does their work matter? This book presents a civics lesson through profiles of public servants, drawn from a special series commissioned by Michael Lewis for the Washington Post. The government is a complex system that Americans fund, depend on, and often overlook. It is made up of mostly unrecognized people doing consequential work that benefits society. Lewis invited writers to find and profile federal employees doing interesting jobs. The resulting essays feature unexpected stories: a former coal miner working to prevent mine roof collapses and save lives; an IRS agent whose work reads like crime fiction; and a manager who transformed the National Cemetery Administration into one of the country's best-run organizations, public or private. Other profiles cover public servants digitizing archives, investigating cybercrime, and discovering new planets. These employees are committed to their work and reluctant to seek recognition. The profiles challenge the stereotype of irrelevant bureaucrats and demonstrate how essential government work makes everyday life possible.