The 17 thinkers who have contributed to this new collection of essays come down firmly on all sides of its central question: is the United States destined to become an authoritarian state? Multiple points of view are expressed by the book’s editor, Cass Sunstein, alone.

In his introduction, Sunstein writes: “My own summary of this book: Absolutely. It has happened before. It will happen again. To many Americans something like it is happening now.”

And yet 56 pages later, speaking only for himself, he says the opposite: “In my view, it really can’t.”

In another collection, such a contradiction might be a problem. Here, it isn’t. The medley of viewpoints expressed suggests something much closer to intellectual honesty than scholarly sloppiness. The truth is, no one can be certain. But whether you are an optimist, a pessimist or an idealist without illusions (John F Kennedy’s self-reverential description), this book bombards you with all the reasons that anyone who treasures democracy needs to be terrified by the current state of our republic.