I was surprised and pleased to receive for my birthday this year the book version (which I had never seen) of the films I used for three decades in my U.S. History classes- Alistair Cooke's America series.
I never paid much attention to Cooke's epilogue, as it didn't really fit into the syllabus of a high school class, but something of it stuck with me. From the book:
I myself think I recognize here several of the symptoms that Edward Gibbon maintained were signs of the decline of Rome, and which arose not from external enemies but from inside the country itself. A mounting love of show and luxury. A widening gap between the very rich an the very poor. An obsession with sex. Freakishness in the arts masquerading as originality, and enthusiasm pretending to creativeness.
- Alistair Cooke, America, p. 387
I find little to disagree with.
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