For nearly a decade, America has been transforming in ways no one predicted. Donald Trump's rise, his populist revolution, and his triumphant 2024 return alongside Elon Musk represent something far deeper than a political anomaly-they signal a fundamental shift in American society that observers and pundits have consistently failed to analyze.

The phenomenon seems incomprehensible and spectacular-especially when viewed through the conventional lens that places European regimes and the United States in the same category of "democracy." But there's a reason this framework fails : it fundamentally fails to graps the deep socio-cultural forces behind those differences.

In this stunning work of historical comparatism, Philippe Fabry draws striking parallels between America and the great republics of the past, those of Rome, Carthage, Venice, the United Provinces and more, and develops a new model to better understand the historical and institutional trajectory of these societies, that of the oligarchic republic.

America is at the dawn of its absolutist phase, an era that will see the considerable strengthening of the power of the presidency, and might even put an end to American democracy as we know it.