Two historians of science team up to challenge the belief that democracy and an unfettered market necessarily go hand-in-hand. They recount how business leaders and conservative intellectuals have striven for decades to promote the notion that the market knows best. But such thinking, argue Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, has had very damaging effects. It has, for instance, worked against the expansion of healthcare programs, thwarted efforts to combat climate change, and during the pandemic undercut moves to deal effectively with covid-19. In describing how so many Americans have come to believe so much in markets and so little in government, Oreskes and Conway make their own case for a middle path, one that is both pro-market and pro-government.