Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history: Finance has become America's dominant industry, while manufacturing has nearly disappeared. The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with...

To argue against the widely proclaimed idea of American decline might seem a lonely task. After all, the problems are real and serious. Yet if we take a longer view, much of the discourse about decline appears exaggerated, hyperbolic and ahistorical. Why? First, because of the deep underlying...