Victor Davis Hanson‘s latest column at National Review Online stresses similarities between present-day political problems and those of the last century.
The 21st-century United States is in a 20th-century fit of depression — with the decline of America the same cultural motif.
In the 1930s, fascism was purported to be more efficient than American democracy. Then Nazism was said to create more idealistic and disciplined citizens.
After World War II, the new Communist man was announced as the wave of the future.
Then came the superior 20th-century model of postwar “Japan, Inc.”
Next was the all-powerful European Union.
The ruthlessly efficient Chinese juggernaut followed and seemed destined to outpace 20th-century America — which was suffering everything from stagflation to a shortage of oil.
But once more in the 21st-century, America is confounding its critics by reinventing itself as it did in the last century.
The U.S. may soon become the world’s largest gas and oil producer. Food exports are booming as never before. American brands from iPhones and Starbucks to Google and Twitter flood the world.
To find answers for this chaotic young century, just look back at the past one.
