by Thomas Frank
First published 2026
Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal, trains his eye on one of America's most cherished self-images: the idea that the United States runs on creativity and innovation in ways no other nation can match. He argues that this flattering story is a con. From Sputnik to Silicon Valley, from Apple to Lockheed Martin, from Madison Avenue to the bike-lane-lined neighborhoods built for the so-called creative class, Frank follows the rhetoric wherever it leads. Politicians tout innovation agendas. Pop psychology books celebrate the restless entrepreneurial mind. SXSW draws musicians and Pentagon officials into the same tent. Frank shows that while this language sounds progressive and forward-looking, it has functioned as cover for cutting taxes on the wealthy, deregulating banks, shipping manufacturing jobs overseas, and reorganizing cities around white-collar knowledge work. The book is an argument that celebrating creativity as a national virtue has, in practice, deepened inequality and protected the people already at the top. Readers who want to understand how a feel-good idea became a political instrument will find Frank's account pointed, specific, and hard to dismiss.
Genres: essays, business, american, economics, criticism, 21st-century, current-affairs, american-history
Vibes: argumentative, critical, eye-opening, incisive, thought-provoking
Tropes: expos, historical-investigation, rhetorical-analysis, systemic-critique
Setting: United States, Silicon Valley, Madison Avenue
Period: Sputnik era, 21st century
384 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press