From Simon Schama a comment piece in the Guardian called The dead and the guilty.

United States Inc is currently being run by an oligarchy, conducting its affairs with a plutocratic effrontery which in comparison makes the age of the robber barons in the late 19th century seem a model of capitalist rectitude.

Of his books I'm afraid I've only read Citizens. Obviously very good but to get the most out of it I really needed to know more about the French Revolution when I started than I did. I think my knowledge of history is worse than that parodied in 1066 and all that. I know something about the period from 1873 (Franco Prussian War) to 1939 as that was the period I studied for my O levels. Outside of there my understanding is perhaps not as detailed as it ought to be.