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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ March 9, 2026
The Short Century
George Packer’s liberal imagination
George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
What happens when liberalism’s crisis is made into a fable?
Daniel Bessner
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Illustration by Joe Ciardiello.
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue.
The Short American Century, which began in 1945 and continued until 2016, was made up of four distinct eras. The first, from the victory in World War II until the student rebellions of 1968, was an era of confidence in which most Americans believed that the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan provided just cause for the United States’ domination of the “free world.” The second, which lasted until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, was an era of skepticism—the failures of Fordism at home and the Vietnam War abroad suggested to many that global American “leadership” might not be achievable at an acceptable cost. The third, which comprised the 1980s, was an era of exuberance, as deregulation, financialization, and a renewed American militarism reinvigorated a hegemonic project that the 1970s had almost annihilated. And the fourth and final era, which began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, was characterized by a hubris that insisted the Soviet Union’s collapse demonstrated the ultimate triumph of US-style democratic-capitalist imperialism.
Books in review
The Emergency
by George Packer
Buy this book
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 put the kibosh on the widespread consensus that the United States was a New Rome, able to weather any domestic or international crisis. It turned out that the Great Recession and the Global War on Terror had undermined both American society and the “liberal international order,” and that the faith in eternal US domination had been misplaced.
In retrospect, it is clear that the populist rage that fueled Trump’s rise marked the end of the Short American Century. But for many liberals, it took quite a while to accept this new reality. Liberals spent much of Trump’s first term trying to explain his victory as an aberration, the consequence of the anti-majoritarian structure of American politics, or Russian interference, or the innate racism of a foolish American populace who didn’t realize, as Hillary Clinton put it, that “America never stopped being great.” For them, Trump’s election marked a brief but unfortunate departure from the progressive arc that US and world history were bound to trace, and once a Democrat won the presidency again, things would return to normal.
Joe Biden’s election in 2020 seemed to confirm this perspective. Liberals concluded that Trump the person, and Trumpism the …
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ March 9, 2026
The Short Century
George Packer’s liberal imagination
George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
What happens when liberalism’s crisis is made into a fable?
Daniel Bessner
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Illustration by Joe Ciardiello.
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue.
The Short American Century, which began in 1945 and continued until 2016, was made up of four distinct eras. The first, from the victory in World War II until the student rebellions of 1968, was an era of confidence in which most Americans believed that the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan provided just cause for the United States’ domination of the “free world.” The second, which lasted until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, was an era of skepticism—the failures of Fordism at home and the Vietnam War abroad suggested to many that global American “leadership” might not be achievable at an acceptable cost. The third, which comprised the 1980s, was an era of exuberance, as deregulation, financialization, and a renewed American militarism reinvigorated a hegemonic project that the 1970s had almost annihilated. And the fourth and final era, which began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, was characterized by a hubris that insisted the Soviet Union’s collapse demonstrated the ultimate triumph of US-style democratic-capitalist imperialism.
Books in review
The Emergency
by George Packer
Buy this book
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 put the kibosh on the widespread consensus that the United States was a New Rome, able to weather any domestic or international crisis. It turned out that the Great Recession and the Global War on Terror had undermined both American society and the “liberal international order,” and that the faith in eternal US domination had been misplaced.
In retrospect, it is clear that the populist rage that fueled Trump’s rise marked the end of the Short American Century. But for many liberals, it took quite a while to accept this new reality. Liberals spent much of Trump’s first term trying to explain his victory as an aberration, the consequence of the anti-majoritarian structure of American politics, or Russian interference, or the innate racism of a foolish American populace who didn’t realize, as Hillary Clinton put it, that “America never stopped being great.” For them, Trump’s election marked a brief but unfortunate departure from the progressive arc that US and world history were bound to trace, and once a Democrat won the presidency again, things would return to normal.
Joe Biden’s election in 2020 seemed to confirm this perspective. Liberals concluded that Trump the person, and Trumpism the …
George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
Transparency shouldn't be controversial.
Log In
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George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ March 9, 2026
The Short Century
George Packer’s liberal imagination
George Packer’s Liberal Imagination
What happens when liberalism’s crisis is made into a fable?
Daniel Bessner
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Illustration by Joe Ciardiello.
This article appears in the
April 2026 issue.
The Short American Century, which began in 1945 and continued until 2016, was made up of four distinct eras. The first, from the victory in World War II until the student rebellions of 1968, was an era of confidence in which most Americans believed that the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan provided just cause for the United States’ domination of the “free world.” The second, which lasted until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, was an era of skepticism—the failures of Fordism at home and the Vietnam War abroad suggested to many that global American “leadership” might not be achievable at an acceptable cost. The third, which comprised the 1980s, was an era of exuberance, as deregulation, financialization, and a renewed American militarism reinvigorated a hegemonic project that the 1970s had almost annihilated. And the fourth and final era, which began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, was characterized by a hubris that insisted the Soviet Union’s collapse demonstrated the ultimate triumph of US-style democratic-capitalist imperialism.
Books in review
The Emergency
by George Packer
Buy this book
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 put the kibosh on the widespread consensus that the United States was a New Rome, able to weather any domestic or international crisis. It turned out that the Great Recession and the Global War on Terror had undermined both American society and the “liberal international order,” and that the faith in eternal US domination had been misplaced.
In retrospect, it is clear that the populist rage that fueled Trump’s rise marked the end of the Short American Century. But for many liberals, it took quite a while to accept this new reality. Liberals spent much of Trump’s first term trying to explain his victory as an aberration, the consequence of the anti-majoritarian structure of American politics, or Russian interference, or the innate racism of a foolish American populace who didn’t realize, as Hillary Clinton put it, that “America never stopped being great.” For them, Trump’s election marked a brief but unfortunate departure from the progressive arc that US and world history were bound to trace, and once a Democrat won the presidency again, things would return to normal.
Joe Biden’s election in 2020 seemed to confirm this perspective. Liberals concluded that Trump the person, and Trumpism the …
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