"Why Americans Hate Politics" by E.J. Dionne is an interesting post WWII political and intellectual history. I think Dionne's thesis that most Americans just want the same few things is bullshit though. He also pretends like the amount of political strife we have now is a new thing, but the history part of the book is…

What!?
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the…

How could I believe in a god that allows Jay Leno to exist?