42) Gigantism was symptomatic of the ambition and hubris of a metropolitan middle class enjoying its golden hour.

However, gigantism is not intrinsically linked to numbers.

Given the gigantism of the American state by the beginning of the twenty-first century, one finds it hard to recall that this was not always the case, that indeed, even fifty years before, let alone a hundred and fifty, the American polis was weighted much more toward the local and regional than to the national government.