"In his beautifully crafted and rigorously reported volume, Andrew Rice takes readers back to Florida in 2000, laying out a cultural and political history of a moment at which America's political system was turned inside out, its power structures upended. The Year That Broke America is vivid and wide-ranging; it also happens to be a page turner." — Rebecca Traister, bestselling author of Good and Mad.
“In this masterful work of storytelling that’s as entertaining as it is illuminating, Andrew Rice, an astute and relentless reporter, has retraced the intersections of politics, finance, pop culture and media at the turn of the century to create a rich, pulsing narrative filled with portents, signs, ironies, comedies of error and revelatory new discoveries. By dropping us back into the frothy, decadent whirl of the year 2000 Rice is describing a world we thought we knew—but didn’t. And it’s a world we’ve been living in ever since." — Joe Hagan, Author of Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine
“Andrew Rice's panoramic history of America in the year 2000 is engrossing, insightful, tragic and above all, irresistible. From the 9/11 plotters and coke-fueled titans of Wall Street, to the battle for the White House and the first buffoonish political pretensions of a certain New York City real estate developer, Rice's keen eye has captured America in full at a moment of critical transition. With a novelist's pacing and an utterly gripping cast of characters, he persuasively traces many of our current discontents to the enthusiasms, antagonisms, and sheer oddities of America at the dawn of the new Millennium.” — Ronald Brownstein
“Journalist Rice offers a fast-paced and jam-packed political and cultural history of America in the year 2000. . . . Pointing out that Florida was where some of the 9/11 hijackers learned to fly, where Donald Trump first planned to run for president, and where the controversy over Elián Gonzalez’s immigration case played out, Rice characterizes the state as the “crucible” from which 21st-century America emerged. . . . Impressively sourced and energetically written, this is a rollicking account of how the country got to where it is today.” — Publishers Weekly
“A heady portrait.” — Kirkus Reviews
“What comes into focus through Rice’s eclectic collection of Florida Man tales is a prehistory of the Darkest Timeline—the one we’re living today. Out of that cauldron emerged a witch’s brew of American carnage we maybe should have seen coming.” — Los Angeles Times