America has long been the country of endless promise, of open vistas, and a sense of providence about its place in the wider world. That optimism has always cloaked the brutality of imperial expansion and limitless growth. And now that centrist ideal of boundless expansion, according to historian Greg Grandin, may be coming to an end, even though the U.S. dominates foreign markets and continues multiple wars abroad. He argues that Trump is a symptom of the closing of that buoyant imperial orientation toward the rest of the world.
Resources:
Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Metropolitan Books, 2019