Eight months ago, I moved to Manhattan to take up a fellowship at the Cullman Center. The Center provides office space and stipends for 15 writers and academics to research their next books. In this year’s intake the subjects range from a novel set in 1980s Sag Harbor and a history of fighting in the US Congress, to the biography of a stand-up comic from New Jersey and a study of emancipation. The Center has also, therefore, provided me with an intriguing historical kaleidoscope of Americana against which to view contemporary events in the country.

I have learnt that the current election is not the first in which the word “change” has so dominated the debate. Back in 1864 Lincoln, campaigning for a second term, advised the American public, “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream”, only to have his adversary General McClellan hijack his slogan. “Change horses,” McClellan told the electorate, “or drown.”