Michael Lewis: Blockers
Southbank CentreBelvedere Road, South Bank, London
Tue 20 Oct · 19:30 · £29
About this event
In conversation with author Elizabeth Day, Michael Lewis discusses his new book, Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State. The bestselling author of Liar’s Poker and The Big Short takes us on a wild ride through the destruction of the US government – and introduces us to the heroes who tried to stop it. In early 2025, the tech bro acolytes of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were on a mission to seek and destroy, by any means necessary. But once inside the government, they came up against a group of people whose courage, commitment and devotion to the nation they served would quickly earn them the wrath of Elon Musk. He called them Blockers. Find the Blockers, Musk told his band of worshipful young men – and eliminate them. This is the story of the unsung heroes at the heart of the most powerful machine ever designed by humankind, who fought back when DOGE, and then even darker forces, wanted to smash it all up. One kept Americans’ most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands, another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighbourhoods, another delivered the cure to cystic fibrosis. There was also a security guard. Blockers is a thriller about unlikely rebels and power-drunk villains, told by one of the most compelling storytellers of our time.
