Osnos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first as the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then the China correspondent for The New Yorker. While abroad he often found himself making a case for America: that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational moral commitments: the rule of law, the power of truth, the right of equal opportunity for all. When he returned to the United States, he found each of these principles under assault. Here he focuses on Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois, to trace the sources of America's political dissolution. He examines a period bounded by two shocks to America's psyche: the attacks of September 11 in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. -- Adapted from jacket.