Decadent Society, The: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat; 2020. Hardcover.

"The Decadent Society" explains what happens when a rich and powerful society ceases advancing--how the combination of wealth and technological proficiency with economic stagnation, political stalemates, cultural exhaustion, and demographic decline creates a strange kind of "sustainable decadence," a civilizational malaise that could endure for longer than we think.

Ranging from the chaos of Trump-era Washington to the gridlock of the European Union; from our empty cradles to our lonely pathways through middle and old age; from the lost promise of the Space Age and early internet to today's earthbound surveillance state; from the recycling of Baby Boomer pop culture to the Brave New World we're making with drugs and virtual reality escapes, Douthat provides an enlightening diagnosis of the modern condition - how we got here, how long our malaise might last, and how, whether in renaissance or catastrophe, our decadence might ultimately end.