The Myth of America’s Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies

America-bashing predates America: French Enlightenment philosophies claimed that the colony was doomed and one critic reported that the colony’s population was astonishingly idiotic [and] enervated . As the United States became a superpower after the Second World War, a more virulent, politically charged form of declinism emerged amid hysteria that the Russians are coming . It was followed by the European miracle, Japan’s Rising Sun and now the looming Chinese behemoth. While declinism may delight the media and gloating Europeans eager to play up America’s has-been status, the facts do not corroborate the contentions, as Josef Joffe demonstrates in this history of American declinism. He offers a highly provocative examination of how the US, for all its failings, continues to be a force of rejuvenation today.