这里是亚马逊的链接：  

【书摘】

Introduction

1.  The United States is living through a difficult time.  Much of the tension focused on Trump, as if he alone were the problem or the solution.  There is nothing new about this.

2.  Some presidents like Lincoln, Nixon, and Trump are reviled by some and loved by others, but the reality is they are not powerful enough to be causing the problem - nor in control of the underlying current they are riding.  Americans place a great deal of the emphasis on the president, going back to Washington, Jackson, or Lincoln.  This is ironic, because the American president has little power compared with European prime ministers.  The founders set this up intentionally, and this arrangement has stood the test of time.  A president faces two parliaments, countless federal judges, and fifty sovereign states.  He can rarely achieve anything, but he focuses the mind of the nation.  So, when the nation goes through one of its periodic and predictable crises, rather than understanding the impersonal forces driving the events, American blame or praise the president.

3.  This is a book that focuses on the underlying process in American history, explaining this moment we are in within the context of our broader history and putting the current passions into context.  

4.  The federal government is undergoing a periodic shift in which its operations and traditional relationships to society are changing.  That shift is driven by increasing failure in the system.  Simultaneously, the economic system is undergoing a fundamental shift driven partly by an excess of money and limited opportunity for investment.

5.  Between these two stresses, and the pressure that emerged from the United States trying to find its balance in the global system, the glue that was holding American society together has weakened and will continue to decline through the 2020s.  And regardless of who is president, fear and loathing will stalk the land for another decade.

6.  There are two major cycles in American history, and by understanding these cycles, we can understand the situation in the United States today.  One is the "institutional cycle", which has transpired approximately every 80 years.  First:  1787-1865 (revolutionary war to civil war).  Second: 1865-1945 (civil war to WWII).  Third: 1945-present (author estimated it will end around 2025).

7.  The another major cycle is the "socioeconomic cycle", which has occurred approximately every 50 years.  The last shift happened around 1980, when the economic and social dysfunction that began in the late 1960s culminated with a fundamental shift in how the economic and social systems functioned.  

8.  In looking at these two major cycles, we see something we have not seen before.  The current institutional cycle will conclude in a crisis around the mid-2020s, and the socioeconomic cycle will end in a crisis within a few years of that.  This is the first time in American history that the two cycles will culminate to close together, practically overlapping.  That obviously means that the 2020s will be one of the most difficult periods in American history, particularly when we consider the new and complex role the United States plays in the world - something that was not a factor during nearly all earlier cycles.  The Trump administration, therefore, is only the precursor of this period and of what's to come.

9.  It's important to note that unlike what sometimes happens in other nations, these cycles don't break the United States.  Rather they drive it forward.

10.  The most important fact to bear in mind is that the United States was an invented nation; it didn't evolve naturally from a finite group of people over thousand of years in one indigenous region, as did, for example, China and Russia.

11.   This book is the story of how the United States works beneath the surface.  To understand that, we must begin with grasping the texture of the American regime, people, and land.  The true story of the United States is how it systematically changes its shape in order to grow.

（待续）