Can America rediscover what made it great?

What happens when progress stops? That’s an important question in a country whose self-understanding is deeply tied to the idea of progress — material, technological, political and social. America’s first three centuries were characterised by physically pushing its border across the continent, west to the Pacific and then across nearly 2,500 miles of open ocean. It would not have been obvious to early Americans that Hawaii, a tropical archipelago far away from the California coast, would become the nation’s fiftieth state, joined in a political union with the far-distant original states facing the Atlantic. While the country was expanding in size, rapid progress was made in many other areas: science and technology extended the average life span, elevated living standards and promoted social mobility and broad-based prosperity. Americans have come to expect upward movement to continue: GDP will keep rising and science will make us healthier and wealthier, while political and cultural movements will make us better, happier people.