From the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of A Short History of Progress comes another surprising, frightening and essential book.

The USA is now the world’s lone superpower, whose deeds could make or break this century. For better and worse, America has Americanized the world. How did a marginal frontier society, in a mere two centuries, become the de facto ruler of the world? Why do America’s great achievements in democracy, prosperity and civil rights now seem threatened by forces within itself?

Brimming with insight into history and human behaviour, and written in Wright’s captivating style, What Is America? shows how this came to pass; how the United States, which regards itself as the most modern country on earth, is also deeply archaic, a stronghold not only of religious fundamentalism but of “modern” beliefs in limitless progress and a universal mission that have fallen under suspicion elsewhere in the west, a rethinking driven by two World Wars and the reckless looting of our planet.

A fresh, passionate look at the past and future of the world’s most powerful nation, What Is America? will reframe the debate about our neighbour and ourselves.

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FINALIST 2009 - BC Book Prize’s Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

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“Brilliant.”
— The Walrus

“A broad synthesis buoyed by its compact, fluid prose, this account is also noteworthy for its extensive footnotes, which document but also invite readers to delve deeper.”
— Booklist

“Provocative, well-argued and raises important questions.”
— The Globe and Mail

“A devastating and brilliant critique.”
— Winnipeg Free Press

“Eloquently impertinent and persuasive”
— Toronto Star

“Wright’s contribution feels like a voice added to a gathering zeitgeist, an accounting of past mistakes and transgressions that allows room for the possibility of better days ahead.”
— The Gazette

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Visit Ronald Wright's website

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Author’s Foreword

1. The New World Order
2. Loot, Labour and Land
3. Very Well Peopled and Towned
4. Religion and Profit Jump Together
5. White Savages
6. Manifest Destiny
7. A Sort of Empire
8. The Winds of Fear
9. The World’s Best Hope

Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

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Ronald Wright is an award-winning novelist, historian and essayist. His last book, the 2004 Massey Lecture, A Short History of Progress, won the CBA Libris Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year and has been published worldwide.

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