In “The Cradle of Citizenship,” the journalist James Traub finds that the biggest crisis in education is not what kids are learning, but whether they’re learning anything at all.
When not guiding students in a compassionate approach to patient care, he led a tiny publishing imprint that put out a much-rejected debut novel that won a surprise Pulitzer Prize.
His “Common Sense,” published 250 years ago, ignited the drive for American independence. That was hardly the end of the radical founder’s strange and winding story.