I wanted to share something I am working on, to see what you all think of it. Dear readers, let me know what you think about this:

When does a war begin? The question seems simple enough, yet history teaches us that the answer is rarely so. For the Second World War, was it September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany’s tanks rolled into Poland, igniting a conflagration that engulfed the globe? Or do we look earlier—to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, whose punitive terms sowed the seeds of resentment in a defeated Germany? Perhaps it was the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, or Mussolini’s conquest of Ethiopia in 1935, or even the Spanish Civil War of 1936, a dress rehearsal for the ideological clashes to come. The noted British historian A.J.P. Taylor, in his seminal work The Origins of the Second World War, argued that the war’s beginnings were not a single dramatic moment but a tapestry of miscalculations, ambitions, and failures stretching back decades. Taylor’s insistence on tracing the threads of history—however tangled or mundane—rather than pinning the blame on one villain or one event, has left an indelible mark on how I approach the subject of this book: the origins of what I call the Second American Civil War.

This is not a war of armies clashing on blood-soaked fields, at least not as I write these words on March 3, 2025. It is a “cold civil war”—a term I use to describe a state of profound division within the United States, where two Americas, irreconcilable in their visions of the nation’s past, present, and future, wage a relentless struggle through words, votes, protests, and, at times, violence. Like the Second World War, its origins defy a single starting pistol. Was it the election of Donald Trump in 2016, a moment that electrified one half of the country and horrified the other? Or do we look to the 2008 financial crisis, which exposed the fragility of the American dream and fueled populist rage? Perhaps it began in the 1990s with the rise of partisan media, or even further back, in the 1960s, when the culture wars first pitted tradition against upheaval. As with Taylor’s analysis of Europe’s descent into chaos, I contend that the Second American Civil War is the product of a slow burn—a convergence of historical grievances, economic dislocations, technological revolutions, and political missteps that have brought us to this precarious moment.

Taylor’s influence on this book is both methodological and philosophical. His refusal to reduce history to a morality play, his eye for the unintended consequences of human action, and his willingness to challenge orthodox narratives resonate deeply with me as I grapple with America’s fractured present. In The Origins of the Second World War, Taylor famously described the conflict as a war that “nobody wanted,” emerging not from a grand conspiracy but from the cumulative blunders of statesmen and the inertia of systems. Similarly, I see the Second American Civil War as a conflict no one consciously sought—at least not in its current form. It is not the result of a single tyrant or a deliberate plot, but rather the outcome of countless decisions, from the deregulation of media to the polarization of Congress, from the algorithms of Silicon Valley to the rhetoric of cable news pundits. Taylor’s knack for weaving a narrative that is at once sweeping and granular inspires me to trace the roots of this cold war through both the broad currents of history and the small, often overlooked moments that shifted the nation’s trajectory.

Consider, for a moment, the parallels between the interwar years of the 20th century and the decades leading to America’s present divide. In Europe, the 1920s and 1930s saw the erosion of democratic norms, the rise of extremist ideologies, and the failure of international institutions to maintain peace. Economic hardship—first the Great Depression, then the uneven recovery—bred disillusionment, while new technologies, like radio, amplified propaganda and polarized public opinion. Across the Atlantic, the United States today mirrors some of these dynamics. The 2008 crash and its aftermath shattered faith in the economic order, leaving millions behind even as Wall Street rebounded. The advent of social media, much like radio in its day, has turned every citizen into a broadcaster, magnifying outrage and entrenching tribes. Institutions—Congress, the judiciary, the press—once seen as bulwarks of stability, now teeter under the weight of partisan distrust. And just as Europe’s leaders stumbled into war through misjudgment and escalation, America’s political class has fumbled its way into a standoff where compromise feels like surrender.

Yet the comparison is not exact. The Second World War was a “hot” conflict, defined by tanks, bombs, and millions of corpses. America’s cold civil war, as of 2025, is fought with ballots, bytes, and occasional bursts of violence—think January 6, 2021, or the armed clashes between militias and protesters in cities like Portland and Kenosha. Where Hitler and Stalin marshaled armies, today’s combatants wield hashtags and lawsuits. The stakes, however, are no less existential. At issue is not just who governs, but what America is: a pluralistic democracy or a nation defined by a singular cultural identity; a land of opportunity or a battlefield of resentment. Taylor might have appreciated the irony that a country once united by its victory in the Second World War now finds itself replaying some of the same prelude to division—albeit in a distinctly 21st-century key.

The search for the beginning of this cold civil war, then, is as elusive as pinpointing the genesis of its global predecessor. One might argue it started with the first Civil War, whose wounds—slavery, states’ rights, racial hierarchy—never fully healed. The Reconstruction era’s promise of equality gave way to Jim Crow, and the 20th century’s civil rights victories only hardened the resolve of those who saw their way of life under siege. By the time the 21st century dawned, the fault lines were already visible: urban vs. rural, secular vs. religious, cosmopolitan vs. nationalist. The 2000 election, with its razor-thin margin and Supreme Court intervention, hinted at the fragility of electoral consensus. The Iraq War and the Patriot Act deepened cynicism about government. The rise of Barack Obama, a symbol of progress to some and provocation to others, widened the rift. Each moment built on the last, much as the Rhineland’s remilitarization in 1936 followed the Saar’s return in 1935—steps toward a breaking point that seemed inevitable only in hindsight.

Taylor’s gift was his ability to see history as a process, not a script. He rejected the notion that war was predestined, emphasizing instead the contingencies—the “what-ifs”—that could have altered the course. What if Chamberlain had stood firm at Munich? What if Hitler had died in 1938? In the same spirit, I ask: What if the 2016 election had gone differently? What if social media had been regulated in its infancy? What if the Supreme Court had stayed out of Bush v. Gore? The Second American Civil War, like the Second World War, is not an inevitability carved in stone but a condition shaped by choices—some deliberate, many accidental. This book aims to untangle those choices, to show how they accumulated into a crisis that, as of March 2025, teeters between resolution and rupture.

The structure of this book reflects Taylor’s influence as well. Part I, “The Roots of Division,” mirrors his approach to the long-term causes of conflict, reaching back to the echoes of 1865 and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. Part II, “The Accelerants,” examines the catalysts—technology, institutional decay, economic disparity—that turned simmering tensions into a cold war, much as the 1930s saw appeasement and rearmament escalate Europe’s drift toward disaster. Part III, “The State of the Cold Civil War,” surveys the landscape of 2025, offering a snapshot of a nation divided yet not fully broken. And Part IV, “Future Trajectories,” ventures into speculation, outlining scenarios of reconciliation, stalemate, or escalation—each a plausible path, none guaranteed, just as Taylor refused to predict the Second World War’s outbreak with certainty until it arrived.

My debt to Taylor is not merely academic; it is personal. As a young reader, I was captivated by his prose—crisp, provocative, and unafraid to upend conventional wisdom. His assertion that history is “a matter of growth, not of creation” stuck with me, a reminder that the Second American Civil War did not spring fully formed from a single election or protest but grew from roots long buried in the national soil. His skepticism of grand theories—his preference for the messy reality of human behavior over tidy ideologies—guides my hand as I navigate the competing narratives of America’s divide. Where others see heroes and villains, I see, as Taylor did, flawed actors stumbling through a fog of their own making.

This preface, then, is both an introduction and a confession. I cannot claim to have found the origin of the Second American Civil War, any more than Taylor could pinpoint the precise moment the Second World War began. History is not a detective story with a neat resolution; it is a map with faded edges, inviting us to trace the routes that brought us here and imagine those that lie ahead. As I write in 2025, the United States stands at a crossroads. The cold civil war could thaw into reconciliation, freeze into a permanent stalemate, or ignite into something hotter and more destructive. My hope is that this book, inspired by Taylor’s clarity and curiosity, offers not just an autopsy of division but a compass for navigating what comes next.

The pages that follow are an attempt to make sense of a nation at odds with itself—to chart the origins of a conflict that feels both ancient and urgently modern. They are written with the conviction that understanding how we arrived here is the first step toward choosing where we go. Taylor once wrote that “the historian’s job is to explain, not to judge.” I take that to heart, though I confess the stakes of this story—my country’s future—make neutrality a challenge. Still, I owe him, and you, the reader, an honest reckoning. Let us begin.