Sarah Churchwell explains how both the expression ‘The American Dream’ and ‘America First’ were born nearly a century ago and instantly tangled over capitalism, democracy and race, coming to embody opposing views in the battle to define the soul of the nation. Using the voices that helped shape that debate, from Capitol Hill to the newsroom of the New York Times, students to senators, dreamers to dissenters, Sarah argues that the meanings and history of these terms need to be understood afresh so that the true spirit of America can be reclaimed. Selected as a 2018 Summer Read by the Sunday Times, Observer, I-Paper and Big Issue

‘Enormously entertaining…’ Sunday Times

‘A fascinating history of the two intersecting tropes of modern America’ New Statesman

‘Lively and eminently readable …a timely and clearly argued book’ Financial Times

‘constructing the case for how the US elected Donald Trump, a catastrophe many of us struggle to understand.’ Prospect Magazine (book of the year 2018)

‘Excoriating, brilliant’ Ali Smith, Big Issue

Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her literary journalism has appeared widely in newspapers including the Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement and New York Times Book Review, and she comments regularly on arts, culture, and politics for television and radio, where appearances include Question Time, Newsnight and The Review Show. She has judged many literary prizes, including the 2017 Baillie Gifford and the 2014 Man Booker, and she was a co-winner of the 2015 Eccles British Library Writer’s Award. She is the author of Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby and The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.

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