Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy

America’s leading essayist on the frantic retreat of democracy, in the fire and smoke of the war on terror

In twenty-five years of imperial adventure, America has laid waste to its principles of democracy. The self-glorifying march of folly steps off at the end of the Cold War, in an era when delusions of omnipotence allowed the market to climb to virtual heights, while society was divided between the selfish and frightened rich and the increasingly debt-ridden and angry poor. The new millen...