Tiziano Bonazzi, professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, where he has taught History and Institutions of North America, was seduced by Magritte's "The Ignorant Fairy", with her half-bright, half-black face, and so titled his latest book on the United States, published by Il Mulino. From Lincoln to Trump, the book chases encounters, memories, and dialogues with the greats of the past. A journey through religion, enterprising spirit, civil strife, deep rifts and antagonisms. Bonazzi recounts today's America by going back to its origins and, above all, its absence of history. It is not, in fact, a matter of noting the young age of this great nation, but of tracing this lack back to a firm principle: "U.S. history is part of European history, a continuation of it, not a negation of it". The landing of the founding fathers was, in fact, a "Second Awakening" under the banner of an evangelism whose long wave is the current rigidly denominational nature of the country. It is precisely in the public manifestations of such religiosity that Bonazzi identifies the primary origin of today's populist impulses in the country, impulses that know no party boundaries.