The American Beast

America's greatest living essayist . . . Wonderful — Fintan O'Toole

A panoptical vision of modern America, from the brilliant mind of Jill Lepore.

The past decade has marked a shift in America's trajectory. Jill Lepore, the acclaimed writer and New Yorker columnist, has been tracing its contested storylines in real time, beginning with the run-up to Donald Trump's election, through to the chaos and confusion left in its wake. Here we encounter Americans' rising techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness, and unprecedented — but armed — aimlessness.

With the wit and verve that has made her the acclaimed national historian of a generation, these essays reflect on the consuming public fissures of this era: culture wars and the corrosion of the media; disruptive innovation and the future of technology; constitutional crises surrounding gun rights and the racial history behind the very language of insurrection. Balancing a penetrating personal lens with indispensable history, she makes sense of life in a moment of aberration and extremity that has left our political landscape forever changed.

The American Beast offers an arresting portrait of America, capturing the tumultuous relationship between the country's violent past and fractured present.