America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends and it is failing to meet them. In THAT USED TO BE US, Thomas L Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum analyse those challenges - globalisation, the revolution in information technology, the nation’s chronic deficits and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what needs to be done now to rediscover America’s power and prowess.

They explain how the end of the cold war blinded the nation to the need to address these issues seriously. They show how America’s history, when properly understood, provides the key to coping successfully and explain how the paralysis of the US political system and the erosion of key American values have made it impossible to carry out the policies the country needs.

THAT USED TO BE US is both a searching exploration of the American condition today and a rousing manifesto for American renewal.