Fault Lines

In this masterful history, leading historians and best-selling authors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer uncover the origins of the current moment in America, answering the question: When-and how-did the country become so polarised? It starts in 1974 with the Watergate crisis, the OPEC oil embargo, desegregation, busing riots in Boston and the wind-down of the Vietnam War. Ever-widening historical fault lines over economic inequality, race, gender and sex norms firing up a polarised political landscape followed. Fault Lines is also the story of the profound transformations of the media and the political system fuelling the fire. This edition has been brought up to date with significant updates throughout, a new chapter on the Trump administration; and a new epilogue on the Biden administration and the 2024 general election.

Kevin M. Kruse is an award-winning scholar on twentieth-century American political history. Fault Lines grew out of the hugely popular course that he and Julian Zelizer co-created at Princeton University, The United States Since 1974.