In a sweeping work of reportage set over the course of 2016, New York
Times bestselling author Ben Fountain recounts a surreal year of
politics and an exploration of the third American existential crisis
Twice before in its history, the United States has been faced with a
crisis so severe it was forced to reinvent itself in order to survive:
first, the struggle over slavery, culminating in the Civil War, and the
second, the Great Depression, which led to President Roosevelt's New
Deal and the establishment of America as a social-democratic state. In a
sequence of essays that excavate the past while laying bare the
political upheaval of 2016, Ben Fountain argues that the United States
may be facing a third existential crisis, one that will require a
"burning" of the old order as America attempts to remake itself.
Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American
politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the
crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national
conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following
election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history,
illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror
and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the
American Dream, to Richard Nixon's southern strategy, to our weaponized
new conception of American exceptionalism, to the cult of celebrity that
gave rise to Donald Trump.
In an urgent and deeply incisive voice, Ben Fountain has fused history
and the present day to paint a startling portrait of the state of our
nation. Beautiful Country Burn Again is a searing indictment of how we
came to this point, and where we may be headed.
