Blockers
Rebels in the Deep State
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Published:6th Oct '26
Should be back in stock very soon
A wild ride through the destruction of the American government - and the unsung heroes who tried to stop it - by the No. 1 bestselling author of The Big Short
'Michael Lewis has a peerless, uncanny gift for finding the human frontlines of the most abstract and complex stories… He routinely populates these battlefields with unlikely heroes from real life… This new book is a straight war report’–Tim Adams, Observer
'The “blockers” are the dedicated officials who try to stop the wanton and often illegal destruction of their life’s work by Elon Musk’s Doge or other agents of chaos… there are few better suited to telling this story than Michael Lewis, one of the world’s bestselling nonfiction writers’–Sam Freedman, Guardian
A wild ride through the destruction of the American government–and the unsung heroes who tried to stop it–by the No. 1 bestselling author of The Big Short
In early 2025, an army of young men invaded the offices of US government. Armed with laptops and sleeping bags, a raft of prejudices and a bulletproof sense of mission instilled in them by their new boss, Elon Musk, the tech bro acolytes of DOGE were on a mission to seek and destroy, by any means necessary. But once inside, they came up against a group of people whose courage, commitment and in some cases lifelong devotion to the nation they served would quickly earn them the wrath of Musk. He called them Blockers. Find the Blockers, Musk told his band of worshipful young men – and eliminate them.
Blockers is the story of the unsung heroes at the heart of the most complex and powerful machine ever designed by humankind, who fought back when DOGE, and then even darker forces, wanted to smash it all up. One kept Americans’ most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands, another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighbourhoods, another delivered the cure to cystic fibrosis. There was also a security guard.
This is a thriller about unlikely rebels and power-drunk villains. It is also a cautionary tale that asks, what do we do when the idea of public service becomes worthless? When the things we didn’t even realise we were taking for granted suddenly no longer exist. When we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone.
For all its sound and fury, Doge achieved no meaningful cuts. Taking its false economies into account, Doge might even have added to the US deficit. Yet as Michael Lewis sets out in his commendable new book, Blockers, the effects of Doge’s 18-week storm will be felt for years to come... Those who want to know about how this is being done and what is at stake should read Lewis’s exemplary volume * Financial Times *
Engrossing and enraging…Blockers is a warning that our politicization of everything is a tremendous curse and a reminder that, especially in a country of the size and complexity and power of the United States, there is much that government does, or should do, that ought to be quietly nonpartisan -- Tim Wu * New York Times *
Michael Lewis has a peerless, uncanny gift for finding the human frontlines of the most abstract and complex stories… He routinely populates these battlefields with unlikely heroes from real life… This new book is a straight war report. Lewis speaks to some of those people who have devoted their working lives to keeping ordinary Americans safe… In each case, Lewis builds an intimate picture of their precise skill set, their devotion to duty, their deep specialised knowledge of complex procedures at different levels of government; and he shows how in each case they came up against the thuggish Doge apparatchiks who told them that all those qualities were no longer required… This cultural revolution was just as wanton in intent if not in execution as Mao’s original… The few dogged souls Lewis identifies were among those who refused to be cowed. The Muskrats had a name for them, which becomes the title of Lewis’s book. They were blockers -- Tim Adams * Observer *
Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State sets out to give a ground-level view of how the nine-or-so months of the DOGE revolution played out for the people cast as the ancien régime: the ordinary bureaucrats who suddenly found themselves part of the ‘deep state’ ... For future historians trying to understand the fractious and chaotic era we’re living through today, Blockers is likely to become an invaluable source -- Malcom Kyeyun * UnHerd *
A roller coaster… reads like a political thriller… [Michael Lewis] has an unfailing eye for the image that nails the emotional undercurrent of a scene -- Laura Miller * Slate *
ISBN: 9780241807781
Dimensions: 242mm x 163mm x 26mm
Weight: 460g
256 pages