It depends on which of the two Americas we are talking about. The past has shaped us so that in our relationships with the outside world, we can be tolerant or puritanical, generous or selfish, grounded or romantic, concerned for humanity or driven by moral ideologies of the avenging angel "messenger" of God, the divinely appointed missionary.

America is now at that historic point where a great nation risks losing its sense of what is truly within its sphere of power and what is outside of it. Power tends to be equated with virtue, and a great nation is particularly prone to the idea that its power is a sign of divine favor, which burdens it with a special responsibility for the fate of other nations, for how to make them richer, happier, and wiser, for how to reshape them "in its own splendid image and likeness."

Power is confused with virtue and tends to be considered capable of anything. Once a great nation is imbued with the idea of "mission," it easily assumes that it has the means and the obligation to carry out God's work.

(J. W. Fullbright)

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]