Why do reasonable people disagree so fiercely about abortion, God, free speech, racism, reparations, sex and gender, wealth, taxation, and the role of government?

Maybe the problem is not that everyone else is stupid or evil. Maybe the problem is that we keep arguing from different starting points, using the same words to mean different things, and pretending that our moral intuitions are self-evident when they are not.

How the World Works is an informal, argumentative tour through the ideas underneath today’s loudest debates. It asks what we can know, what we should value, whether science can determine morality, when fairness requires equal treatment, when compassion requires an exception, and who gets to decide when individuals, society, and the state disagree.

Along the way, Steve Isaacson takes on some of the hardest questions in public life: Is abortion murder? Does God exist? Can morality survive without religion? Is racism always irrational? Are reparations fair? Should rich people pay more taxes? What is the price of free speech? And what kind of world should we want to live in?

This is not a book of slogans. It is not written to flatter one tribe or punish another. It is a book about thinking clearly in an age of ideology—about slowing down, defining terms, following arguments, and asking the uncomfortable question: What if I might be wrong?

If you have ever suspected that the world is more complicated than the people yelling on television, social media, or in politics are willing to admit, this book is for you.