This course is part of the 2025 Democracy & Diversity Summer Graduate Institute to be held in Wroclaw, Poland, July 4th-19th, 2025. They are open to all graduate students and advanced undergraduate students across the New School. Students interested in participating in the Institute MUST submit an application by the deadline. Please find more info on the TCDS website: https://blogs.newschool.edu/tcds/dd-institutes/2025-democracy-diversity-summer-institute/ In 1968, the radical Catholic priest Daniel Berrigan burned draft files in protest of the Vietnam War. Going on the run after his arrest, he wrote the poem “America is Hard to Find” as a way to express what he felt was the destructiveness of the American way of life. His quest was to find, save, and help create a country he could believe in. He was not alone. Despite the great wealth and power of the United States, Americans have long feared that the country is losing its way, estranged from its defining values or essence. This course uses persisting claims of crisis and decline as a frame to understand post-World War Two American history and the place of the United States in the world. We will cover the Cold War, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, the Vietnam War and antiwar protest, the “Second Cold War” under Ronald Reagan, right-wing critiques of the liberal state, LGBTQ activism, and the so-called “War on Terror.” Particular attention will be given to the ways various historical actors have tried to define American values and aimed to save the nation’s soul, in the face of perceived crisis. The political repression of dissident voices is a central part of the American story. But vigorous protest of the status quo and powerful social movements is part of the story too, contributing to the strength of American democracy and its historic pluralism. Through it all, we will ask if the second Trump administration and larger MAGA movement represents a fundamental transformation of American identity. Today, countless people the world over are asking. “What is happening to America?” “Where has America Gone?” The course will combine 1) videotaped lectures about historical topics 2) works of history and literature to illuminate the American past and 3) contemporary works that will help us evaluate if America — in the current assaults on freedom, democracy, and the rule of law — is at risk of losing itself forever.