In June of this year, I traveled to Berlin for the first time in my life. The reason for my visit was to be there for the installation of Stolpersteine outside of the last place my great grandparents and my grandfather lived in . Stolperstein are small metal plaques resembling cobblestones embedded in the sidewalk outside the former homes of those who were killed or displaced by the Shoah. My grandfather, who was a child at the time, fled Berlin…

When does an empire die? In Megalopolis, writer-director Francis Ford Coppola posits that it occurs when its people stop believing in it. For America–which Emerson described as “the country of the future…of projects, vast designs and expectations”–we have largely stopped talking about the future. Two centuries ago, we were preoccupied with the questions of expansions and slavery. A century ago, we were racing toward a Great Depression while reveling in decadence. But now, we are sold happiness as cheap consumer…