DANIEL GROSS CELEBRATES the flexibility and the robustness of the American economy, arguing that it enjoys many hidden strengths, and will expand in the future, but his book—Better, Stronger, Faster—is undermined by a crucial ambiguity. Gross sets up as his target the “declinists” who view the economy with despair, but he does not clearly explain who the declinists are or what they believe, and in the end he provides a boosterish, one-sided account of American economic advantages that relies on anecdotes and skimps on analysis. The book is less interesting for its argument than for what it reveals about how Americans might confront the pangs of national decline.
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