21st century America is anxious and discontented. Our economy is sluggish, our culture is always at war with itself, our governing institutions are frequently paralyzed, and our politics seems incapable of rising to these challenges. The resulting frustration runs broad and deep: It fans populist anger while driving elites to despair. It persuades progressives that America is stuck while convincing conservatives that we are rushing in the wrong direction. It manages to make people on all sides of most issues feel as though they are under siege simultaneously.

Why should this be? And how can we overcome our frustration? In this groundbreaking exploration of America’s 21st-century challenges, Yuval Levin argues that our anxiety is rooted in a failure of diagnosis. Our politics is drenched in nostalgia, with Democrats always living in 1965 and Republicans in 1981, and is therefore blind to the profound transformations of the last half century. America’s midcentury order was dominated by large, interconnected institutions: big government, big business, big labor, big media, big universities, mass culture. But in every arena of our national life—or at least every arena except government, for now—we have witnessed the centrifugal forces of diffusion, diversity, individualism, and decentralization pulling these large institutions apart. These forces have liberated many Americans from oppressive social constraints but also estranged many from families, communities, work, and faith. They have set loose a profusion of options in every part of life but also unraveled the social order and economic security of an earlier era. They have loosened the reins of cultural conformity but also sharpened our differences and weakened the roots of mutual trust.

Building on our strengths while healing our wounds, Levin argues, would require a politics better adapted to the society we have become—a politics rooted in neither an ethic of centralized power nor a spirit of radical individualism but a regard for the potential of a modernized subsidiarity and civil society.

21世纪的美国是焦虑和不满的。我们的经济低迷，我们的文化总是在与自己交战，我们的管理机构经常陷入瘫痪，而我们的政治似乎没有能力应对这些挑战。由此产生的挫折感广泛而深刻：它煽动了民粹主义的愤怒，同时将精英们推向绝望。它说服进步人士认为美国已经陷入困境，同时说服保守人士认为我们正朝着错误的方向前进。它设法让大多数问题的各方人士感到他们同时被围困。

为什么会这样？我们如何才能克服我们的挫折感？在这个对美国21世纪挑战的突破性探索中，尤瓦尔-莱文认为，我们的焦虑源于诊断的失败。我们的政治沉浸在怀旧之中，民主党人总是生活在1965年，共和党人生活在1981年，因此对过去半个世纪的深刻变革视而不见。美国本世纪中期的秩序是由大型的、相互关联的机构所主导的：大政府、大企业、大劳工、大媒体、大大学、大众文化。但在我们国家生活的每一个领域--或者至少现在除了政府之外的每一个领域--我们都看到了扩散、多样性、个人主义和分散化的离心力，将这些大型机构拉开。这些力量将许多美国人从压迫性的社会约束中解放出来，但也使许多人与家庭、社区、工作和信仰疏远。它们在生活的每一个部分都放出了大量的选择，但也解开了早先时代的社会秩序和经济安全。它们松开了文化一致性的缰绳，但也使我们的分歧更加尖锐，削弱了相互信任的根基。

莱文认为，在治愈我们的创伤的同时发扬我们的优势，将需要一种更好地适应我们已经成为的社会的政治--这种政治既不是植根于中央集权的伦理，也不是植根于激进的个人主义精神，而是植根于对现代化的辅助和公民社会的潜力的关注。