For two centuries after it was established, the American system of government was a benchmark and an inspiration for much of the rest of the world. In the last decade, however, it has seemed increasingly troubled. Those difficulties seem to go beyond immediate political events to raise more fundamental questions about systems, values and institutions. As a friendly outsider, the Irish writer Fintan O’Toole asks how deep this crisis goes and whether the promise that America once held for the world can be restored.
Fintan O’Toole, columnist for The Irish Times and the Leonard L. Milberg Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton