Twelve great reasons to love a great country: An excerpt from The American Patriot’s Almanac by William Bennett and John T. E. Cribb. The Royal "We": Politicians make strong statements about what "the American people" think, but the electorate doesn't speak in one voice. American exceptionalism is an old idea and a new political battle (and a response). Does anyone else think there's something a little insecure about a country that requires its politicians to constantly declare how exceptional it is? Exceptionalism and the left: All countries are different, but does America differ from all of them, in a fundamental way? From The American Interest, Walter Russell Mead on the crisis of the American intellectual. A superpower in decline: Is the American Dream over? From TNR, American decline is the specter haunting our politics — this could be President Obama's undoing or it could provide him with the opportunity to revive his presidency; and back to normalcy: Is America really in decline? Paul Kennedy investigates. Why it’s time to worry: Can the United States go the way of Germany in the past — a great society undone by terrible social turmoil? A review of Bruce Ackerman’s The Decline and Fall of the American Republic (and more). An interview with Patrick Porter on books about the rise and fall of America. The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: Alfred W. McCoy on four scenarios for the end of the American century by 2025.
