Video: "One Nation, On Edge"
James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition—cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths.
Education: "What Makes a Great Teacher?"
How one organization, drawing on two decades of observation and research, may have found the answer. By Amanda Ripley
Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..."
... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown
Chart: "The Happiness Index"
Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller
Since coming back to the United States after three years away in China, I have been asking experts around the country whether America is finally going to hell. The question is partly a joke. One look at the comforts and abundance of American life—even during a recession, even with all the people who are suffering or left out—can make it seem silly to ask about anything except the secrets of the country’s success. Here is the sort of thing you notice anew after being in India or China, the two rising powers of the day: there is still so much nature, and so much space, available for each person on American soil. Room on the streets and sidewalks, big lawns around the houses, trees to walk under, wildflowers at the edge of town—yes, despite the sprawl and overbuilding. A few days after moving from our apartment in Beijing, I awoke to find a mother deer and two fawns in the front yard of our house in Washington, barely three miles from the White House. I know that deer are a modern pest, but the contrast with blighted urban China, in which even pigeons are scarce, was difficult to ignore.
And the people! The typical American I see in an office building or shopping mall, stout or slim, gives off countless unconscious signs—hair, skin, teeth, height—of having grown up in a society of taken-for-granted sanitation, vaccination, ample protein, and overall public health. I have learned not to bore people with my expressions of amazement at the array of food in ordinary grocery stores, the size and newness of cars on the street, the splendor of the physical plant for universities, museums, sports stadiums. And honestly, by now I’ve almost stopped noticing. But if this is “decline,” it is from a level that most of the world still envies.