THE AMERICAN CRISIS

Essayists reflect on the current state of the nation.

In keeping with the Atlantic’s goal of “debating and illuminating America’s meaning and purpose,” editor at large Murphy gathers 40 incisive essays from an impressive roster of contributors. “How did we get here?” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg asks in his introduction. “How did our politics become so appalling and dispiriting? How did a system meant to elevate the most qualified among us instead place a grifter in Lincoln’s house? How did the gaps between rich and poor, men and women, black and white, immigrant and American-born, become so profound?” The essays are grouped into four sections: the first looks at “underlying conditions of society as a whole that have been deteriorating for decades.” The second examines the failure of politics; the third covers the disastrous Trump presidency; and the last focuses on the possibility for the nation’s reinvention. Contributors consider issues such as racial inequality, cultural divides and polarization, climate change, voter suppression, the plight of undocumented immigrants, and evangelical Christians, who regard themselves, "hysterically and with self-pity, as an oppressed minority that requires a strongman to rescue it.” Former Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust melds history with a memoir of her childhood in Virginia, “a world in which silences distorted lives, and falsehoods perpetuated structures of power rooted in centuries of injustice.” In a moving portrait of a Baltimore resident struggling with health problems, staff writer Olga Khazan sees that “America’s racist and segregationist history continues to harm black people in the most intimate of ways—seeping into their lungs, their blood, even their DNA.” Caitlin Flanagan rails against rich parents’ sense of entitlement, which she experienced firsthand as a guidance counselor at a tony prep school. Among many unsettling pieces are profiles of Newt Gingrich, Paul Manafort, Ivanka Trump, and, most disturbingly, conspiracy theorists enraptured with QAnon. Other top-notch contributors include Anne Applebaum, George Packer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, and Yuval Noah Harari.

An illuminating collection of perceptive, well-argued, and compelling essays.