The United (and Divided) States er en kort og letlæst introduktion til det amerikanske samfund. Bogen kan med fordel benyttes på landets universiteter og gymnasier, men er også relevant for enhver, der ønsker at stifte bekendtskab med Amerikas historie, opbygning og underlæggende strukturer. Bogen er skrevet på engelsk.

Abraham Lincoln observed on the eve of the Civil War, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” In 2021 the United States seems so polarized that it again is in a profound crisis. How did it become so divided?

This book examines the divergent experiences of American generations, the widening gaps between social classes, longstanding regional tensions, the diversity of American racial and gender identities, the weakening allegiance to a shared civil religion, and the disruptions caused by the new digital economy.

Has the discord culminated in the Trump presidency and the 2020 elections? Can President Biden overcome the animosities that are tearing the nation apart? Or is the American Century coming to an end?

The United (and Divided) States ofers a new framework for understanding the United States, written in the accessible style that a generation of readers have enjoyed in the same author’s Contemporary American Society.