From post-Cold War optimism through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant explains how the historical clues paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. He shows how the US moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. In a country torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, coronavirus catastrophe, and the storming of Capitol Hill, Bryant provides a personal elegy for an America lost. -- adapted from jacket