Every now and then, a truly profound book appears on a profoundly important subject. Mark Lilla’s Ignorance and Bliss is one such book.

Lilla’s name might not be familiar to many Australian readers. The author of several scholarly works of history concerning Western political and religious thought, he is best known in the northern hemisphere as a regular contributor to TheNew York Review of Books, the New York Times and Liberties (a newish non-partisan online journal that publishes serious and controversial essays about significant issues in culture and politics). Some Australians might have read Lilla’s previous book, The Once and Future Liberal (2017), a bracing polemic about identity politics. A liberal, he is troubled by the turn taken by progressive politics in the United States.