When America Stopped Being Great: A history of the present

A comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, cultural and technological factors that contributed to America's decline and inadvertently paved the way for Trump's presidency.

The presidency of Donald Trump is commonly seen as an historical accident. In When America Stopped Being Great, Nick Bryant argues that it was almost historically inescapable. In this highly personal account, drawing on decades of covering Washington for the BBC, Bryant shows how the billionaire capitalised on the mistakes of his five predecessors - Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama - and how also he became a beneficiary of a broken politics, an iniquitous economy, an ailing media, a facile culture, disruptive new technology and the creation of a modern-day presidency that elevated showmanship over statesmanship. Not only are we seeing the emergence of a post-American world, Bryant fears we are witnessing the emergence of a post-American America. The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when Donald Trump refused to accept defeat and incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol, revealed the country's chronic state of disunion.

The history of Donald Trump's rise is also the history of America's fall.