It doesn’t take a keen psychologist to explain why the 1990s have become a subject of pop-culture fascination. Snapshots from the decade feel almost like pictures of a foreign country: peaceful, prosperous, possessed of an almost comically naive faith in the future. Look at those people who thought presidential blowjobs and the Y2K computer bug were the Republic’s greatest threats! Can you believe that was us? Twenty-one years—and a Supreme Court–adjudicated national election, a burst tech bubble, a devastating act of terrorism, a disastrous foreign quagmire, a worldwide financial panic, a white-nationalist political upsurge, a calamitous global pandemic, and an attempted coup d’état—wiped that optimistic smile off our faces. In the wounded America of 2021, we look at the ’90s with envy.

And yet, as the Clinton impeachment drives ratings on FX and Monica Lewinsky shows up in Vanity Fair and DC-area bars rediscover the joys of cosmopolitans and the kids throw ’90s-themed parties, we wanted to look back with something other than just bemused jealousy. To revisit the decade is to see the roots of many of our 21st-century dysfunctions, such as the rise of permanent political war. But you also discover the first green shoots of many more pleasant things about contemporary Washington, from improved representation of women in the corridors of power to the flowering of a truly creative local food scene. The ’90s may seem like the last good time, but they were actually the decade that, for better and worse, created the city we now inhabit.

– Michael Schaffer