Coming Apart

Charles Murray makes a game effort at the end of this devastating account of America's decline to postulate a way out, but his heart doesn't seem to be in it. At bottom, the problem is a literal one of breeding: The upper classes, mostly college-educated and civilized, are reproducing among themselves in de facto segregated zip codes; meanwhile, the pathologies of the lower orders — crime, bastardy, joblessness — are only getting worse. And there is no end in sight. Or, perhaps more accurately for what Murray calls the "American project," there is indeed an end in sight.