I swear, it get’s easier after the first chapter. I know, it’s a very historical section, I think the typical descriptive background a political book like this needs to introduce before it can formulate its thesis. After the broad global overview the book focuses more on US political history and then it gets interesting when it finally addresses the checks and balances. For me as a European, I learned a lot of new things and it made my view on the US clearer. From the first chapter I only remember the peruanian (?) president was a Japanese guy, lol.