Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Coming up on today's show, my colleague Howard Hussock will join us to talk about his brand new book, Who Killed Civil Society, The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bouchoir Norms.

We've briefly mentioned the book already on the podcast, and if you've already read it, please leave a review on Amazon, by the way.

But we're excited to get Howard in the studio today to dive into a history that doesn't get enough attention.

America's long tradition of private philanthropy, civic groups like the Rotary Clubs, and other volunteer work

outside the formal mechanisms of government. Next week, we'll be talking with Heather

McDonald about her forthcoming essay on San Francisco's raging homelessness crisis. That's a very

important piece that's going to be in our fall issue. Right now, though,

we'll take a quick break and we'll be back with Howard Hussack after the music.

Hi again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me in the studio today is Howard Hussack. Howard's the author of the important new book, Who Killed Civil Society,

The Rise of Big Government and Decline of Bushwa Norms. He's also the director of the Manhattan Institute Civil Society program, which we'll talk a little bit about today.

And he's a contributing editor of City Journal a long time.

Howard, welcome back to the podcast. Always good to have you on.

Thanks for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure.

The first question that authors are usually asked is what drove you to write the book, so I'll start that way.

Why did you want to write this book at this particular moment?

Well, it's actually a personal story, Brian.

In the late 1990s, I became interested in the question of how my father had survived his childhood.

In fact, I like to say, and I did write this in City Journal in a long ago essay,

called How the Agency Saved My Father.

That's really where this book began, was with that essay in City Journal.

And as I said at that essay, the greatest mystery of my childhood was how my father survived his because my father

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