Not terribly long ago, I partnered with AEI Press to revive a lost classic book, Government Project by the great social scientist Edward C. Banfield (1916-1999). The book was published in 1951, and had been out of print for decades.

My passion for the book started around 20 years earlier. I had read the book and been stunned by its brilliance and wisdom. I wrote an essay about it for Public Administration Review, which was published in 2009. It was all well and good to call attention to it, however, doing so was of limited utility. Used copies of Government Project were exceedingly difficult to find.

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In 2020 I joined the American Enterprise Institute and not long afterward I floated the idea of republishing the book. Thankfully, my boss, Yuval Levin, saw merit in my idea and greenlighted the effort.

AEI Press’s Sarah Bowe and Rosalie Blacklock led the effort to bring the project to fruition. They took a faded PDF of the original book and transformed it into a handsome new paperback with an eye-catching cover. I contributed a new preface, but otherwise the text remains exactly as Ed Banfield wrote it. The book was released in December of 2024, and immediately drew attention and positive reviews. The Wall Street Journal ran a glowing review and also deemed it one of the “best politics books” of 2025.

So what is Government Project about?