The Power of “We”
Unprecedented political polarization; deep and accelerating inequality; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private self-centeredness—Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: this is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. The Gilded Age of the late 1800s was much like today.
America then was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized and deeply fragmented—what
