“Two Americas” and an Elegy

I intentionally tried not to read too much this past week. But two FT articles stick out:

First, Simon Schama’s long meditation on “the two Americas,” in which he compares today’s travails to LBJ, 1965, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the wake of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma.

“I still want it to work out well for this country and that shrinking part of the world that looks to it, in spite of the evidence of its decadence and near-collapse, for inspiration and renewal,” Schama writes.

Second, Janan Ganesh writes “an elegy for hillbilly elegies,” interweaving Bruce Springsteen’s career with the brief candle of elite (and journalistic) U.S. fascination with rural lives and the people who lead them.

Suffice to say, how to make an unum out of pluribus is an issue that’s going to be around a while.