Now, at a time when the cynicism about our government's value is a topic of heated discussion, Thomas Geoghegan vividly redefines the terms of the debate. Combining memoir and trenchant observation, he uses his own life to explore what it means to be a "national" civil servant and a "local" citizen. The decline of the "national idea," the rise of the States, and the growing weakness of the central government pushed Geoghegan to the local level in Chicago. There, as a lawyer, he fought evils of a new kind: tuberculosis among the homeless, the spread of child labor, the use of jails to house the poor - evils that the progressives at the turn of the century had vanquished but were now back in a new and more virulent form.

National government and majority rule were once the two great achievements of our history. But now, as Geoghegan vividly shows, the weakness and gridlock of the central government has undermined our sense of local community and local citizenship, and, most perniciously, has restricted our ability to affect the political process at every level, leading to disengagement. In revealing the true nature of the current problems and the connections among them, The Secret Lives of Citizens shows how we might reclaim our right to shape our government and secure for everyone the true promise of American life.