“History seldom pays heed to round numbers,” writes Andrew Rice, “but sometimes it does converge in a time and place.” In The Year That Broke America, the time is the giddy edge of the new millennium, and the place is Florida, the unlikely crucible of the future. In the year 2000, George W. Bush and Al Gore will fight for the presidency, only to see it decided by the smallest margin imaginable in a state that nobody trusts to determine anything. In the year 2000, a third candidate, the bloviating businessman Donald Trump, will mount a ridiculous third-party campaign from Mar-a-Lago. In the year 2000, a castaway Cuban child will ignite a Miami family drama that dominates the nascent 24-hour cable news cycle, creating a fateful crisis for the Florida-born attorney general, Janet Reno. In the year 2000, a high-flying banker—one of the most successful Black men on Wall Street—will stumble into a shady arms dealing conspiracy that stretches from Palm Beach to Pakistan. And in the year 2000, a group of studious young men dispatched by Osama bin Laden will arrive in Florida, hoping to learn how to fly. The Year That Broke America weaves these threads into a vivid, novelistic narrative, marshalling an impressive cast of crusaders and zealots, schmucks and schemers, superstars and shameless scoundrels. It tells the story of the place where we all live now.