While studying at Harvard, Hill noticed that Massachusetts recapitulated the divides she’d already noticed in northeast England and the USSR. Harvard’s wealthy, elite campus contrasted with Somerville, dubbed “Slummerville,” a factory town north of Cambridge that suffered from economic decline. Hill’s graduate studies coincided with the fall of the USSR, and though that collapse and its aftermath may seem to be specifically because of the failure of communism, Hill asserts that there are striking commonalities between the US, UK, and the USSR.

Postindustrial economic decay is a symptom of a broken system manipulated by the intra-elite. In Russia, postindustrial disparities were more immediately evident because industry there was widely dispersed. In contrast, in the UK and US, areas where industry was central suffered at the expense of those built around other kinds of commerce. While coastal US cities prospered following the end of the Cold War, the Midwest flailed economically, as cities and communities built on industry lost resources, infrastructure, and opportunities.

While Hill found the US much more forgiving of her accent than the UK, she was shocked to find that America wasn’t as egalitarian as she’d imagined it. The regional divides and gender discrimination mirrored those of England, but the extent of structural racism made the US a category onto itself.