Disunited states

In Disunited States, John D. Donahue contends that despite its broad appeal, letting Washington fade and the states take the lead is a dubious strategy for reform. It reflects a misreading of America's history, a warped view of its bedrock values, and a false analogy to the virtues of competition and decentralization in the private sector. At worst, he argues, America's willing disintegration within an integrating world economy will be recorded among history's monumental follies.

At best, devolution will prove to be a detour on America's path to renewal.

Donahue shows that shifting power toward the states will do much less than advocates promise to boost efficiency and accelerate innovation - and much more than they admit to undercut national interests and corrode America's sense of commonwealth.

Addressing controversial topics as diverse as welfare reform, school funding, legalized gambling, and interstate bidding for business investment, he weaves a coherent case that isolated action by competitive state governments, not excessive centralization, poses the graver threat to Americans' most cherished goals. The ascendancy of the states cannot relieve us of the need to confront our problems - growing inequality, eroding trust in government, and an imperiled middle-class culture - as a nation.

The genius of the founders was to forge a single vital nation out of the several separate states, and Disunited States reveals that the road to national division - the road not taken by Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, or Washington - may turn out to lead us not toward restored greatness, but away from it.