Introduction by Jeffrey Goldberg -- "When the next plague hits" / by Ed Yong -- "The birth of a new American aristocracy" / Matthew Stewart -- "Left behind" / by Tara Westover and Jeffrey Goldberg -- "Red state, blue city" / by David A. Graham -- "Carry me back" / by Drew Gilpin Faust -- "Being black in American can be hazardous to your health" / Olga Khazan -- "The undocumented agent" / by Jeremy Raff -- "Brotherhood of losers" / by Angela Nagle -- "The most expensive weather year ever" / Annie Lowrey -- "The prophecies of Q" / by Adrienne LaFrance -- "They had it coming" / by Caitlin Flanagan -- "A warning from Europe" / by Anne Applebaum -- "Newt Gingrich says you're welcome" / by McKay Coppins -- "What's ailing American politics?" / by Jonathan Rauch -- "American hustler" / by Franklin Foer -- "The battle for North Carolina" / by Vann R. Newkirk II -- "How America ends" / by Yoni Appelbaum -- "The last temptation" / by Michael Gerson -- "Why technology favors tyranny" / by Yuval Noah Harari -- "In case of emergency" / Elizabeth Goitein -- "The enemy within" / by James Mattis -- The coronavirus called America's bluff" / by Anne Applebaum -- "Donald Trump and the politics of fear" / by Molly Ball -- "The first white president" / by Ta-Nehisi Coates -- "The Republican Party moves from family values to white nationalism" / by Alex Wagner -- "Am I an American?" / by Ibram X. Kendi -- "The world burns. Sarah Sanders says this is fine" / by Megan Garber -- "How to destroy a government" / by George Packer -- "How to build an autocracy" / by David Frum -- "General chaos" / by Mark Bowden -- Inside Ivanka's dreamworld" / by Elaina Plott -- Will Beth Moore lose her flock?" / by Emma Green -- "The cruelty is the point" / by Adam Serwer -- "The last day of my old life" / by Caitlin Flanagan -- "Becoming a parent in the age of Black Lives Matter" / by Clint Smith -- "The lessons of the Great Depression" / Lizabeth Cohen -- "The road from serfdom" / by Danielle Allen -- "In the fall of Rome, good news for America" / by James Fallows -- "The possibility of America" / by David W. Blight -- "What art can do" / by Lin-Manuel Miranda -- Afterword: "Between bravado and despair" by Anne Applebaum.