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Book Barack Obama and the American Dream as Depicted in Some of His Famous Speeches

Download or read book Barack Obama and the American Dream as Depicted in Some of His Famous Speeches written by David Tebbe and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-University Paper from the year 2012 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,5, , language: English, abstract: In 2009 Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States. He fascinated millions of people all over the world and even in Germany people recited his motto “Yes we can”. He inspired a nation. Obama and his speeches were so electrifying that a lot of people spoke of a national obsession with Senator Barack Obama. I wondered how he managed to fill the people with enthusiasm. He was always speaking about the American Dream. So I asked myself: “What is this American Dream; which of its values and ideas are so fascinating that they inspired the nation, and how are they influenced by Obama using them in his speeches? Does Obama just use them for tactical reasons because they are so popular?” In order to answer these questions it is at first necessary to define the term “American Dream” and to understand the history and meaning of its ideas and values. Then I want to look at Obama's biography, if there are any hints that show his interest in the American Dream and what influence does it have on his interpretation of the American Dream. For the analysis of his interpretation of the American Dream I have chosen a selection of Obama ́s most striking speeches up to April 2009 . These speeches show how he managed to inspire many citizens. Because I want to illustrate all of the six fundamental concepts of the “American Dream” I scanned the whole collection for striking phrases exemplifying his use of these ideas. They will show his specific interpretation of the American Dream.

Book Barack Obama and the American Dream

Download or read book Barack Obama and the American Dream written by Bernd C. Schmidt-Nagel and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Discussion and Essays, grade: 1,7, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: The acting president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, fascinated millions of US-citizens in many of his campaign speeches in 2008. With his slogan “Yes we can!” he offered them a new, believable perspective. Finally, this wave of euphoria brought him to the White House and made him, contrary to all expectations, the first black US-President. I looked fascinated and interested at all important incidents happening in the USA in 2008 and I just wondered why it was possible to this man, like no other person, to fill so many people in this great country with enthusiasm and to give them a new hope of a better future. Looking back on these events and irrespective of the fact if his goals were achieved or not, I ask myself which values, ideas and aims made the people so absolutely excited and how they were influenced by Obama. If you only take a superficial view on this issue, it already becomes clear that the very popular American Dream, which is based on American history, is and was one of the important subjects of Obama’s speeches. How Obama uses this Dream and the way he updates and enlarges it should be the central question of this thesis. In order to do so, it is at first important to take a close look at Barack Obama, his curriculum vitae and his political rising. On the other hand, I want to present the history of the American Dream, as well as a preferably general but handy definition of what the American Dream actually is and what it wants to express. Based on this, a detailed analysis of certain speeches of Obama with a special focus on the American Dream follows. Outgoing from the results of the analysis, I will examine how Obama encloses the dream in his way of argumentation, the different values he refers to and the influence of different audiences on the usage of the American Dream. In order to answer the general question of this thesis, explained above, in a good and suitable way, these points will be synoptically summarized in the conclusion. Of course, it is impossible to take a serious look at all his speeches or to pick up every single aspect of the American Dream coming up during American history, as this would exceed the extent of this essay. Nonetheless, a coherent, objective and differentiated answer to the general question should be the goal and claim of this thesis.

Book The American Dream in the Speech  Yes we can  by Barack Obama

Download or read book The American Dream in the Speech Yes we can by Barack Obama written by Luisa Grötsch and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-University Paper from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: This paper examines the speech of Barack Obama “Yes we can”. The focus lies on the used concept of the American Dream. The second focus involves a statement that Hillary Clinton made during the primary campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The work concentrates on Barack Obama’s own biography “Dreams from My Father”, his book “Audacity of Hope” describing his thoughts of reclaiming the "American Dream", and Jim Cullen’s often cited book “The American Dream”. The main sources for the analysis of the speech are Harald Frank’s book “Rhetorische Analyse der “Yes we can” Rede von Barack Obama” and Shel Leanne’s book “Say it like Obama”. For the concluding evaluation of Barack Obama’s political achievements various articles and statistical data are used.

Book Barack Obama and the American Dream

Download or read book Barack Obama and the American Dream written by Bernd C. Schmidt-Nagel and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English - Discussion and Essays, grade: 1,7, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: The acting president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, fascinated millions of US-citizens in many of his campaign speeches in 2008. With his slogan "Yes we can " he offered them a new, believable perspective. Finally, this wave of euphoria brought him to the White House and made him, contrary to all expectations, the first black US-President. I looked fascinated and interested at all important incidents happening in the USA in 2008 and I just wondered why it was possible to this man, like no other person, to fill so many people in this great country with enthusiasm and to give them a new hope of a better future. Looking back on these events and irrespective of the fact if his goals were achieved or not, I ask myself which values, ideas and aims made the people so absolutely excited and how they were influenced by Obama. If you only take a superficial view on this issue, it already becomes clear that the very popular American Dream, which is based on American history, is and was one of the important subjects of Obama's speeches. How Obama uses this Dream and the way he updates and enlarges it should be the central question of this thesis. In order to do so, it is at first important to take a close look at Barack Obama, his curriculum vitae and his political rising. On the other hand, I want to present the history of the American Dream, as well as a preferably general but handy definition of what the American Dream actually is and what it wants to express. Based on this, a detailed analysis of certain speeches of Obama with a special focus on the American Dream follows. Outgoing from the results of the analysis, I will examine how Obama encloses the dream in his way of argumentation, the different values he refers to and the influence of different audiences on the usage of the American Dream. In order to answe

Book The Audacity of Hope

Download or read book The Audacity of Hope written by Barack Obama and published by . This book was released on 2009-02-03 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A government that truly represents these Americans, that truly serves these Americans, will require a different kind of politics. That politics will need to reflect our lives as they are actually lived. It won't be prepackaged, ready to pull off the shelf. It will have to be constructed from the best of our traditions and will have to account for the darker aspects of our past. We will need to understand just how we got to this place, this land of warring factions and tribal hatreds. And we'll need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break. FromThe Audacity of Hope. Echoing themes he sounded in his extraordinary keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Senator Barack Obama speaks in this book to Americans of all stripes who are weary of the smallness of U.S.politics today, and who long for something rooted in the faith and decency of the American Dream. In The Audacity of Hope he draws on his experience as a senator and lawyer, a professor and father, a Christian and a skeptic, to illuminate the greatness of America's original ideals and to remind us how vital it is to keep them before us. Along the way he explores such charged topics as globalization, the notion of American exceptionalism, the function of religion in public life, and the struggle to find a shared language in a nation torn by differences. While sharing his personal views on family, faith, and values, he argues that our very survival depends on finding common ground. Pundits and voters alike have hailed Senator Obama as a man of uncommon vision in an age of partisan opportunism.The Audacity of Hope is a book of transforming power, a foundation for those who long for a politics that acknowledges the nobility and complexity of our lives.

Book The Audacity of Hope

Download or read book The Audacity of Hope written by Barack Obama and published by Crown. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Barack Obama’s lucid vision of America’s place in the world and call for a new kind of politics that builds upon our shared understandings as Americans, based on his years in the Senate “In our lowdown, dispiriting era, Obama’s talent for proposing humane, sensible solutions with uplifting, elegant prose does fill one with hope.”—Michael Kazin, The Washington Post In July 2004, four years before his presidency, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. One phrase in particular anchored itself in listeners’ minds, a reminder that for all the discord and struggle to be found in our history as a nation, we have always been guided by a dogged optimism in the future, or what Obama called “the audacity of hope.” The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama’s call for a different brand of politics—a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the “endless clash of armies” we see in congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of “our improbable experiment in democracy.” He explores those forces—from the fear of losing to the perpetual need to raise money to the power of the media—that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He also writes, with surprising intimacy and self-deprecating humor, about settling in as a senator, seeking to balance the demands of public service and family life, and his own deepening religious commitment. At the heart of this book is Barack Obama’s vision of how we can move beyond our divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats—from terrorism to pandemic—that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy—where it is vital and where it must never intrude. Underlying his stories is a vigorous search for connection: the foundation for a radically hopeful political consensus. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, Obama says, can Americans repair a political process that is broken, and restore to working order a government that has fallen dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans. Those Americans are out there, he writes—“waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them.”

Book  Yes We Can   Barack Obama s Rhetoric of Hope in the 2008 Presidential Race

Download or read book Yes We Can Barack Obama s Rhetoric of Hope in the 2008 Presidential Race written by Lisa Meyer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,3, University of Passau, language: English, abstract: In the 2008 Presidential Election of the United States of America the democratic Afro-American Senator of Illinois Barack Obama won against his republican competitor, the Senator of Arizona John McCain. This was partly a consequence of Obama’s tactic to deliver speeches which transmitted hope and the faith to believe in America as a great country with a great future where everything is possible, by using common American cultural concepts like the American Dream, the American Exceptionalism and talking about an American Unity, an inclusive America where everyone is welcome. In the following paper I will firstly show what exactly the concept of the American Dream means, why it is still important until today and why Barack Obama fits very good into this construction of the fulfilled American Dream.

Book Barack Obama

Download or read book Barack Obama written by Thomas E. Carney and published by Novinka Books. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 44th U.S. President, Barack Obama, has fulfilled the dream of "inclusiveness" for American society by moving contemporary society closer towards universal equality for all. Dr. Thomas E. Carney has written a powerful and incisive volume on the life and policies of Obama from his birth in Hawaii in 1961, through his diverse roots in Hawaii and Indonesia, to his education in Jakarta (St. Francis of Assisi) and Honolulu (Punahou), Occidental and Columbia Universities, to his presidency of the prestigious Harvard Law Review in 1990. The challenges Barack Obama faced are traced from his graduation from Harvard Law School in 1991, his first jobs with Business International Corporation and the New York Public Interest Research Group, through his internship with the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin where he met future wife Michelle who was his appointed mentor, to his own law position with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Obama also worked as a community organizer early in his career seeking justice in voting rights, tenant rights, employment rights, and anti-trust suits. He worked on the Illinois Vote Project in 1992 and became a lecturer at the University of Chicago's Law School where he taught Constitutional Law. This excellent biography follows Barack Obama through his election from the 13th district to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, his successful campaign to win a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004, and the winning of the presidency in 2008. All the important policies of President Obama's election in 2008 and first term are discussed in detail: the economy and government TARP policies; fights against terrorism; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the DREAM issues over immigration; and the DOMA discussions. As the first Africa-American President, this life story of President Barack Obama extending to the end of his first presidential term is a wise and moving story of hard-fought success. Barack Obama's life offers a strong role model of fine character for Americans young and old.

Book Inaugural Presidential Address

    Book Details:
  • Author : Obama Barack
  • Publisher : Hardpress Publishing
  • Release : 2016-06-23
  • ISBN : 9781318914043
  • Pages : 32 pages

Download or read book Inaugural Presidential Address written by Obama Barack and published by Hardpress Publishing. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Book Obama s America

Download or read book Obama s America written by Dinesh D'Souza and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that President Obama intends to weaken America so that other nations may rise in the name of global fairness, claiming that a second Obama term would bring about defense cuts and increased dependence on foreign energy.

Book Metaphorical Stories in Discourse

Download or read book Metaphorical Stories in Discourse written by L. David Ritchie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book defines and explains, in straightforward language, metaphorical stories using examples from sources such as conversations, speeches, and editorial cartoons.

Book A Promised Land

Download or read book A Promised Land written by Barack Obama and published by Random House. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND PEOPLE NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • NPR • The Guardian • Slate • Vox • The Economist • Marie Claire In the stirring first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil. Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office. Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden. A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible. This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.

Book Dreams from My Father

Download or read book Dreams from My Father written by Barack Obama and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-01-09 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama “guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race” (The Washington Post Book World). “Quite extraordinary.”—Toni Morrison In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. Praise for Dreams from My Father “Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . This book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride’s The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams’s Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America’s racial categories.”—Scott Turow “Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither.”—The New York Times Book Review “Obama’s writing is incisive yet forgiving. This is a book worth savoring.”—Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here “One of the most powerful books of self-discovery I’ve ever read, all the more so for its illuminating insights into the problems not only of race, class, and color, but of culture and ethnicity. It is also beautifully written, skillfully layered, and paced like a good novel.”—Charlayne Hunter-Gault, author of In My Place “Dreams from My Father is an exquisite, sensitive study of this wonderful young author’s journey into adulthood, his search for community and his place in it, his quest for an understanding of his roots, and his discovery of the poetry of human life. Perceptive and wise, this book will tell you something about yourself whether you are black or white.”—Marian Wright Edelman

Book Requiem for the American Dream

Download or read book Requiem for the American Dream written by Noam Chomsky and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! In his first major book on the subject of income inequality, Noam Chomsky skewers the fundamental tenets of neoliberalism and casts a clear, cold, patient eye on the economic facts of life. What are the ten principles of concentration of wealth and power at work in America today? They're simple enough: reduce democracy, shape ideology, redesign the economy, shift the burden onto the poor and middle classes, attack the solidarity of the people, let special interests run the regulators, engineer election results, use fear and the power of the state to keep the rabble in line, manufacture consent, marginalize the population. In Requiem for the American Dream, Chomsky devotes a chapter to each of these ten principles, and adds readings from some of the core texts that have influenced his thinking to bolster his argument. To create Requiem for the American Dream, Chomsky and his editors, the filmmakers Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott, spent countless hours together over the course of five years, from 2011 to 2016. After the release of the film version, Chomsky and the editors returned to the many hours of tape and transcript and created a document that included three times as much text as was used in the film. The book that has resulted is nonetheless arguably the most succinct and tightly woven of Chomsky's long career, a beautiful vessel--including old-fashioned ligatures in the typeface--in which to carry Chomsky's bold and uncompromising vision, his perspective on the economic reality and its impact on our political and moral well-being as a nation. "During the Great Depression, which I'm old enough to remember, it was bad–much worse subjectively than today. But there was a sense that we'll get out of this somehow, an expectation that things were going to get better . . ." —from Requiem for the American Dream

Book Fabricating the Absolute Fake

Download or read book Fabricating the Absolute Fake written by Jaap Kooijman and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own "America" within a post-9/11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American pop culture.

Book Who Stole the American Dream

Download or read book Who Stole the American Dream written by Hedrick Smith and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize winner Hedrick Smith’s new book is an extraordinary achievement, an eye-opening account of how, over the past four decades, the American Dream has been dismantled and we became two Americas. In his bestselling The Russians, Smith took millions of readers inside the Soviet Union. In The Power Game, he took us inside Washington’s corridors of power. Now Smith takes us across America to show how seismic changes, sparked by a sequence of landmark political and economic decisions, have transformed America. As only a veteran reporter can, Smith fits the puzzle together, starting with Lewis Powell’s provocative memo that triggered a political rebellion that dramatically altered the landscape of power from then until today. This is a book full of surprises and revelations—the accidental beginnings of the 401(k) plan, with disastrous economic consequences for many; the major policy changes that began under Jimmy Carter; how the New Economy disrupted America’s engine of shared prosperity, the “virtuous circle” of growth, and how America lost the title of “Land of Opportunity.” Smith documents the transfer of $6 trillion in middle-class wealth from homeowners to banks even before the housing boom went bust, and how the U.S. policy tilt favoring the rich is stunting America’s economic growth. This book is essential reading for all of us who want to understand America today, or why average Americans are struggling to keep afloat. Smith reveals how pivotal laws and policies were altered while the public wasn’t looking, how Congress often ignores public opinion, why moderate politicians got shoved to the sidelines, and how Wall Street often wins politically by hiring over 1,400 former government officials as lobbyists. Smith talks to a wide range of people, telling the stories of Americans high and low. From political leaders such as Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and Martin Luther King, Jr., to CEOs such as Al Dunlap, Bob Galvin, and Andy Grove, to heartland Middle Americans such as airline mechanic Pat O’Neill, software systems manager Kristine Serrano, small businessman John Terboss, and subcontractor Eliseo Guardado, Smith puts a human face on how middle-class America and the American Dream have been undermined. This magnificent work of history and reportage is filled with the penetrating insights, provocative discoveries, and the great empathy of a master journalist. Finally, Smith offers ideas for restoring America’s great promise and reclaiming the American Dream. Praise for Who Stole the American Dream? “[A] sweeping, authoritative examination of the last four decades of the American economic experience.”—The Huffington Post “Some fine work has been done in explaining the mess we’re in. . . . But no book goes to the headwaters with the precision, detail and accessibility of Smith.”—The Seattle Times “Sweeping in scope . . . [Smith] posits some steps that could alleviate the problems of the United States.”—USA Today “Brilliant . . . [a] remarkably comprehensive and coherent analysis of and prescriptions for America’s contemporary economic malaise.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Smith enlivens his narrative with portraits of the people caught up in events, humanizing complex subjects often rendered sterile in economic analysis. . . . The human face of the story is inseparable from the history.”—Reuters

Book When America Stopped Being Great

Download or read book When America Stopped Being Great written by Nick Bryant and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Nick Bryant is brilliant. He has a way of showing you what you've been missing from the whole story whilst never leaving you feeling stupid.' – Emily Maitlis 'Bryant is a genuine rarity, a Brit who understands America' – Washington Post In When America Stopped Being Great, veteran reporter and BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant reveals how America's decline paved the way for Donald Trump's rise, sowing division and leaving the country vulnerable to its greatest challenge of the modern era. Deftly sifting through almost four decades of American history, from post-Cold War optimism, through the scandal-wracked nineties and into the new millennium, Bryant unpacks the mistakes of past administrations, from Ronald Reagan's 'celebrity presidency' to Barack Obama's failure to adequately address income and racial inequality. He explains how the historical clues, unseen by many (including the media) paved the way for an outsider to take power and a country to slide towards disaster. As Bryant writes, 'rather than being an aberration, Trump's presidency marked the culmination of so much of what had been going wrong in the United States for decades – economically, racially, politically, culturally, technologically and constitutionally.' A personal elegy for an America lost, unafraid to criticise actors on both sides of the political divide, When America Stopped Being Great takes the long view, combining engaging storytelling with recent history to show how the country moved from the optimism of Reagan's 'Morning in America' to the darkness of Trump's 'American Carnage'. It concludes with some of the most dramatic events in recent memory, in an America torn apart by a bitterly polarised election, racial division, the national catastrophe of the coronavirus and the threat to US democracy evidenced by the storming of Capitol Hill.