Fiona Hill has written an eclectic book that combines her own story as the Northern England daughter of a coal miner and a nurse, then Harvard graduate, then advisor to presidents with a keenly observed analysis of the decline of economic and educational opportunity since the 1980s in the UK, the U.S., and Russian. Extremism, she argues, comes out of frustration at dead-end jobs (or no jobs), poor schools, poor health, and a wealthy class that sequesters all the opportunities for itself; people without horizons tend to gravitate toward their “tribes,” and everybody becomes more tribal, less civil, and polarized in their beliefs. Some of her own experiences with the challenges of coming from poverty to the highest echelons of power are horrifying: as an NSC Director, she was referred to as “darlin’” by a president who couldn’t be bothered to learn her name and a room full of white men refused to speak up for her when that President asked her to retype a speech. These indignities wear at people’s souls, Hill suggests, and they are assumed by a privileged class that expects the right to hold others back so they can get ahead. Hill doesn’t spend much time on the ultimate results in these societies if more opportunities are not opened for more people—she is solutions-oriented—but she does predict more populism, extremism, and authoritarianism. She has more hope for locally based micro-initiatives to lift people out of poverty, get them invested in national success, and then the tools to successful human beings. We each can play a role in staving off more Know-Nothing populism of the Donald Trump brand: by mentoring young people, insisting on stronger transit systems and more equitable schools, sharing and being kinder. These are not platitudes; they are the keys to a livable society.